THE LUDENDORF PIRATES

Readers who were wiped out by The Dirty Dozen will find themselves back home in psycho alley with this novel about the hijacking of the largest German battleship of World Wax II, the Ludendorf. It is 1940, and a British special forces crew--yes, a dozen--embarks on a mad mission: to pose as survivors of a sunken U-boat, to be picked up on a raft by the German navy's colossal warship Ludendorf--and then to take the ship from its 350 crewmen (the undermanned ship is on a trial run after refitting), and then to sail the ship into a Baltic U-boat repair depot, blow up everything in sight, and scuttle the ship. Well, that's not so much for twelve guys, though this is something of a skeleton crew for a ship so large. The expert killers are helped out by a reluctant American, who agrees to take the bridge (wheelhouse) for $25,000. The scenes rocket by, bursting with death-sighs, -rattles, and -groans, and one sees endless cliffhangers through the camera's eye. No surprise--Ramrus and Shaner are veteran screenwriters and relentlessly bent on snagging a movie sale. A mashed thumb, a grisly grip--drip, drip, drip!