THE PROTECTORS (1987)

The Protectors are a team of teenage operatives for CENTRAL.

What that name, treated as an acronym obviously with its all caps, means is not mentioned. It is stated that it is a secret government agency doing secret government things though they are not mentioned much either. The head of the organization is Reg McCormack, a short, round man with a pink round face and bushy white hair. Jolly is a word used to describe him although he can be serious when needed.

To aid them in their clandestine work, it was decided by the team at CENTRAL to form an elite band of teenage operative who could fit into numerous different roles without being thought agents because of their young age. The need to pick the very best resulted in a test being administered all over the country and a small handful of people were chosen. These select few were picked to become part of a team called the Protectors because it would be their job to offer protection to people CENTRAL felt needed it.

Five teenagers make up the Protectors. They are:

Matt O'Neal, a white male whiz with anything electronic (he is much better with gadgets than with other people some times).

Micky Malano, a white female actress and disguise expert (she has an attitude - all the time).

John Wendell Waterford IV, a very rich and very spoiled white male who acts like he is entitled to be as wealthy as he is).

Riana Riggs, a fairly shy black girl with a quick brain and a photographic memory (she does not even have to try to memorize things).

Lu Golden, a Vietnamese male recently moved to the U.S., a brown belt in karate (he is forever talking of his hands being registered weapons).

When we first meet these young people, they had never heard of CENTRAL, which makes sense because it is a secret, or each other. The first mission they are inadvertently thrown into makes them see how good a team they could be - all without a bit of actual training. They go up against CONQUEST, a terrorist organization created by the former head of CENTRAL after he had gone off the deep end and ousted. He was resentful.

When my one of my grown children was a kid I bought quite a few Goosebumps books by R.L. Stine and, when no one was watching, read more than a couple. I liked them. Stine adventures are fast-paced smooth-reading with interesting, individualized characters.

The two books in this series, also by Stine under a pen-name, are much the same way. Very, very fast reads with the teenagers being quite different from each other with each having his or her own quirks. As stories, these are quite good.

As spy novels, they are average. Not good and not bad. But that is from the viewpoint of a so-called adult. If I had read these at the age-group they were written for, I would have loved them. So do I grade them as an adult or as the intended target. I went the former, only because I figure those reading these words would not be teens.