Martin Caidin started, in the 1950s, as an aerospace journalist who also wrote popular nonfiction about airplanes and aviation history. He was also a pilot, who – in the course of his early writing career – flew as an observer with the Thunderbirds (the U. S. Air Force precision flying team), jumped with the Golden Knights (the U. S. Army parachute demonstration team), and helped to shepherd three war-surplus B-17 bombers from Arizona to England, where they were used to make the 1962 film The War Lover. His back-of-the-book photos from that era show a guy with a military haircut, a pair of aviator’s sunglasses, and a serious expression – somebody who, you just knew, wore a white shirt and a narrow black tie when he was at the office. Caidin was, in the language of the day, a square: the spiritual brother of the engineers, astronauts, and military pilots he wrote about.

Now . . . imagine somebody like that sitting down, in the early 1970s, and writing a novel about aerial drug smuggling in South Florida. Imagine him trying to capture the dress, the lifestyle, the language, and the mindset of the (mostly youthful) dealers and users of the Florida drug scene. Imagine that the novel’s level of lurid sensationalism is fairly accurately captured by its cover image: a naked, blindfolded woman bound to the propeller of a twin-engine Beech, the propeller hub resting firmly between her parted thighs. If you’re a film fan, try this: Imagine a version of Easy Rider scripted by any of the principal characters in Apollo 13.

Whatever you’ve just imagined, Maryjane Tonight at Angels Twelve is worse. Savor the mellifluously obscure title, contemplate the pulp-magazine-worthy cover, and set the book aside, safe in the knowledge that you’ve experienced the best parts of it. ( )