The John Lange books continue to read like practice novels for Michael Crichton as we arrive at the fourth entry, “Zero Cool” (1969). It came out in the same year as “The Andromeda Strain,” and suffice it to say there’s a reason why that book is legendary and no one has heard of “Zero Cool.”
Familiar structure
Hiding behind the Lange moniker, Crichton uses the same structure as the second book, “Scratch One.” That novel is more fun, but this one is easier to follow. And at its high point, around the end of act two, Crichton delivers a steady series of cliffhanger chapters that kept me enthusiastically turning the pages.
But he struggles to make his characters seem real. Peter Ross, a 26-year-old doctor, is obviously a stand-in for the author. Perhaps bored in medical school, Crichton imagines himself vacationing in Spain, walking along a beach where the women vastly outnumber the men.
“Zero Cool” (1969)
Author: Michael Crichton, writing as John Lange
Series: John Lange No. 4
Genre: Hardboiled crime, adventure
Setting: Spain, 1969
Peter effortlessly hits it off with Angela Locke, the cover girl in the Hard Case version. Even by femme fatale standards, Angela doesn’t come to life beyond that nice cover painting by Greg Manchess (where, if you look closely, she’s reading “Grave Descend,” the seventh Lange book).
Crichton was perhaps frustrated with women at the time. Angela likes Peter not for who he is but for what he can do for her. That’s Femme Fatale 101, but ideally she should have a little more depth.
Fun with mathematics
A gang of baddies asks Peter (nicely at first, then at gunpoint) to perform an “autopsy,” which actually means putting a box inside a corpse for the sake of smuggling it to the U.S.
“Scratch One” also features a guy – a lawyer in that case – minding his own business when he’s roped into a complex scheme (by mistake in that case). This rarely happens in fiction (where most action/intrigue heroes are connected to an organization), let alone in reality. It perhaps illustrates how Crichton longs for an adventure to randomly happen to him.
As much as “Zero Cool” has a stream-of-consciousness vibe, it’s also overly cautious. In the best chapter, we meet a crime kingpin obsessed with statistics. He plans his schemes only after analyzing the probabilities of each step. (Similarly, the first Lange book, “Odds On,” chronicles a heist based on odds.)
But then it turns out the bad guy was jerking Peter’s chain. His supposed obsession with mathematics was a goof. If it had been genuine, “Zero Cool” would’ve had a hook from that point forward.
Moorish but boorish
Spicing up the later pages slightly, Crichton brings us to the Alhambra, Moorish ruins that comprise a tourist destination in the hills outside Grenada. The temperature is often 20 degrees cooler than in the town. (That’s part of where the title comes from, along with Angela’s ribbing that Peter has “zero cool.”)
The author introduces this location in appealing encyclopedic style but it doesn’t permeate the cat-and-mouse game that fills the final chapters. Both author and main character make it up as they go along. Judging by his actions, Peter is ridiculously brave. But weirdly, Crichton never writes him as brave.
Crichton doesn’t seem to believe the story he’s writing. Indeed, in the early Aughts he decided “Zero Cool” needed a touch-up. In a framing mechanism – which comprises the “two new chapters” mentioned on the back cover of the Hard Case editions – Peter tells the story to his grandson for a school project. (The kid is recording it onto a DVD, which tipped me off that these chapters weren’t written in 1969.)
Peter goes through the clichéd shootout motions because Crichton says so. And especially if you’ve already read “Scratch One,” you’ll feel like you’re going through the motions with “Zero Cool.” Now that we have “The Andromeda Strain” for comparison – not to mention 1968’s “A Case of Need” (written under the Jeffery Hudson name) — this is quite obviously Crichton’s B-game.