Today, in the latest installment of my BAD BOOKS PODCAST, we will be reviewing “Atomic Duet – An FBI Story.” This atrocity purports to be a “cozy thriller” by a former “FBI Guy” if I may wax colloquial. Well, Mr. Guy, let me be the first to tell you: there is no such category. How dare you, sir, attempt to rip apart the fictional boundaries we have all worked so hard to erect!

This fellow, whose name I shan’t utter, lest I render it easier for listeners to locate his tawdry product, has the audacity to suggest that the sanctified thriller genre can be ameliorated by reducing body counts, explosions and fatal fist/knife/gun fights to what he dares to term “an acceptable minimum.” In this instance, there are only two explosions – yes, you heard that right, ONLY TWO – and less than two dozen fatal encounters. UNACCEPTABLE! Moreover, the threadbare descriptions of oozing wounds and severed body parts left me oozing with severe disappointment.

Now let’s move on to the most deplorable example of how the invisible sacred bond that exists between the thriller reader and writer is so casually yet cruelly sundered by this Guy: there are no sex scenes…I have to pause here for a moment to catch my breath and prevent imminent rage-induced palpitations! Oh yes, there is a tease here and there that some hanky-panky might erupt in the erotic fulminations that make the thriller genre such a delight. But even the teases are bereft of mammaries! DOUBLY UNACCEPTABLE!  Also missing: torture, impossible physical feats, and fast cars.

Need I say more? Yes.

The title refers to a “duet,” which Webster defines as “a performance by two people.” And yet, there were no such duets! There were, however, many references to “atomic” things, which I suppose is why this BAD BOOK is being discounted as a tie-in to the premiere of “Oppenheimer,” which I will be reviewing next week on my BAD CINEMA PODCAST.

Don’t forget to click LIKE and SUBSCRIBE. Also, because his publicist paid me for it, I am compelled to display an image of this “work,” and links to its availability…which will obviously not last long. Many reviews nastier than mine can be found by click-inating here.

Atomic Duet – An FBI Story is available on Amazon. The Kindle version is three bucks. Paperback costs six times that but it’s got a nice blizzard cover.

UPDATE: Pinth-Garnell’s History

Leonard Pinth-Garnell: Host of “Bad Performances”

Leonard Pinth-Garnell was a recurring SNL character played by Dan Aykroyd. Pinth-Garnell, always clad in a tuxedo and black tie, would lugubriously introduce a short performance of “Bad Conceptual Theater”, “Bad Playhouse”, “Bad Cinema”, “Bad Opera”, “Bad Ballet”, “Bad Red Chinese Ballet”, or “Bad Cabaret for Children”, and then exult in its sheer awfulness. Aykroyd played the character nine times from 1977 through 1979, and returned for a single appearance on November 3, 2001, introducing “Bad Conceptual Theater.” (The show was hosted at least one time by Laraine Newman as Lady Pinth-Garnell.)

Pinth-Garnell was loosely based on the longtime PBS Masterpiece Theatre host Alistair Cooke.

Memorable quotations

  • “Stunningly bad!”
  • “Monumentally ill-advised!”
  • “Perfectly awful!”
  • “Couldn’t be worse!”
  • “Exquisitely awful!”
  • “Astonishingly ill-chosen!”
  • “Really bit the big one!”
  • “Unrelentingly bad!”
  • “Rally socks!”
  • “There…That wasn’t so good now, was it?”

http://bit.ly/44jHMOQ  Joe Enright Views the Passing Parade

https://argyleheights.blogspot.com  Joe Enright Unearths Flatbush History

http://bit.ly/439oKt3  “Atomic Duet” on Amazon

https://atomicduet.com All “Atomic Duet” Reviews

https://www.youtube.com/@JoeEnrightArgyle Joe Enright’s You Tube Channel