Lee Grimes was born in Nebraska in 1920 and died in Connecticut in 2009. He wrote three sci-fi books, a children’s book, and these two Chandra Smith books. I found a site called Nebraska Authors that has Lee Grimes pseudonym as Fremont Dodge but I only see one book listed under that name and it’s called Muck Man.
The Ax of Atlantis is unfortunately, the second and final entry in the Chandra Smith series. Chandra is an art expert/spy. He is also ex-military and a judo master who can kill you with his bare hands. He is a mix of Caucasian and Indian descent. When I saw the cover with the name Chandra, I thought Chandra was a female spy. My apologies to all the Indian Chandra’s out there. Typical Westerner. To be fair though when I googled Chandra Smith up popped a young lady named Chandra Smith, who apparently has won the 2023 crown of Ms. Wheelchair of America. So, there are female Chandra’s. Also, congratulations to her.
We start the book in Crete. A man with a bull head is holding court over a guilty man. The man is on trial for treason and the man with the bull head is the descendant of Minos who is also the minotaur, and he is judge, jury and executioner. There is a lot of ancient Crete mythology in this. I knew absolutely nothing going in and only now have a loose grasp on what I read. It seems the author did his work though as it’s in depth with theories, conspiracies, history and locations. Basically, Crete was Atlantis, a volcano destroyed it but Crete was built on top of it. Minos was the Crete King. There was a Minotaur. And their God was Poseidon. Greece took over Crete and the Cretans traded in their fun brutal Gods of old for boring Christianity. My apologies if I messed it up. It was a lot to take in. But it is an interesting backdrop for a story.
We meet Sarah, the Olympic gymnast/archeologist who believes that Crete was indeed Atlantis. She is there for an excavation of artifacts. She is also the scantily clad lass on the cover that I thought was Chandra. Helping with the dig is a bunch of hired sailors. The leader of the sailors is wealthy Nikos Vezalakis, a former Admiral for the Greek Navy. He also happens to be the descendant of Minos and the Minotaur. He owns his own personal sub and is basically a diabolical over the top movie-Bond villain who has plans for your miss Olympic gymnast, Sarah.
Back in the states we meet our hero Chandra, who is absolutely plastered at a bar. He gets in a bar fight and is saved by spy outfit contact, Mr. Ames. Interesting introduction to our character if you haven’t read the first one, which I hadn’t. Mr. Ames needs Chandra to head out to Crete to keep an eye on his niece Sarah whom he believes might be in danger.
There is some backstory about Chandra’s love interest from the previous book. Apparently, in between books she was randomly attacked at a party and is now in a coma. This had me cracking up. The author ends the first book with Chandra and his love interest riding off into the sun together and instead of just not including her in the next installment like most series do, he has her brutally attacked in a random act of violence. Ha! And it’s not to give Chandra a mood setting for this book because he only really cares for like the first quarter. As soon as other possible tail pops up, he moves on with ease. Too funny.
Anyway. Chandra goes to Crete, investigates on the sly, escapes attacks, kicks ass, gets laid…you know the drill... hot ladies, violence, mental chess, diabolical villains with worldwide domination plans.
This was very formulaic but a whole lot of fun. I loved the ancient Greek mythology and Atlantis conspiracies. It was James Bond meets Indiana Jones with a California born Indian ass kicking assassin. A short, quick, action filled read that never lets up. It’s really a shame that there weren’t more of these. If there had been I would for sure been hunting them down. As it is now, I need to find the first one.
Warner Books 1975
Cover art by Ben F Stahl
Review by Nick Anderson
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