company: Ace Books, Inc.number: D-530
year: 1961
length: 128 p.
writer: Robert Moore Williams
cover art: Uncredited
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After last week’s venture with Roger Moore Williams’ science fiction disasterpiece The Second Atlantis, as fine an example of lazy pay-the-bills fiction as can be had, I’m not ashamed to say that I was craving more and, being the type who picks up well-worn genre offerings by virtue of their titles alone, I found myself lucky enough to already have another of the author’s works sitting as yet unread on my overstuffed bookshelf. Contrary to recent experience and much to my surprise Williams’ 1961 novella The Day They H-Bombed Los Angeles proved to be a competent piece of work, offering up more than enough thrills and chills to keep the reader invested for the swift 128 page haul.
BROOOOMMMMM! BOOOOONG! BROOOOOMMMM! (p. 7)
Starting off with a literal bang, The Day They H-Bombed Los Angeles begins with salesman and ex-marine Tom Watkins rushing to a Civil Defense shelter just in time to avoid the unseemly effects of the event foretold in the title – a multiple hydrogen-bombing of the Los Angeles basin. In the shelter he joins forces with a movie star, a doctor’s secretary and an F.B.I. agent, among others. Questions quickly arise as to just who bombed the city . . . the Russians? . . . the Chinese? The revelations of agent Kissel, previously engaged in a mass operation to locate an undisclosed menace to the nation’s security, soon shift the blame to none other than the American government, an accusation that is only bolstered when Tom and the other survivors are stopped in their attempted flight by soldiers ordered to shoot to kill.
