Croc
David (David Hagberg) James
Belmont Tower, 1976
ISBN: 508-50959-150
David Hagberg is going as David James on the cover and spine of Croc, a fairly slim little Belmont Tower paperback that asks the question “The hunters -or the hunted?” when there’s a crocodile in the sewers of New York City. Belmont was a second (or third) rate publisher in the 70s They churned out whatever the market wanted that month, seemingly. Westerns, crime stories, Men’s Adventure, mystery, gothics, romance, gothic romance, and even horror. They had great covers and good copy written on the back that didn’t always match up to the book inside. They sold books any which way they could.
Croc came along in 1977 riding the wave (get it?) of Jaws by Peter Benchley and Jaws by Steven Spielberg. All the animals that COULD kill us were used in the various rip-off movies and paperbacks, it was a new law of nature. Croc isn’t even the only one with a crocodile/alligator. There’s Shelly Katz’s Alligator and David J. Michael’s Death Tour just to name a couple. But it seemed like a good way to make a quick buck for a publisher and an author, so David Hagberg started thinking.
David Hagberg was an interesting writer, a Navy veteran who worked as a code breaker when he was in the service who used his military service later on when he was writing spy novels. Once out he turned his sights on writing and started humbly with Twister, a novel to cash-in on the “disaster craze” of the 70s. He soon found himself writing for the long-running Nick Carter: Killmaster series of Men’s Adventure novels and adaptations of the Flash Gordon comic strip. Later he pulled himself out of the pseudonym world and had his own name on books with another long-running spy series, this one of his own design with his Kirk McGarvey book. Also, along the way he penned a solid horror novel called Last Come the Children, complete with fairly bonkers 80s paperback horror cover.
What do you do with that little crocodile that you bought when you don’t want to deal with it anymore? Throw it in the trash? Nah. Let it loose outside? No, that’s dangerous. You flush it, duh. It’s an urban legend that has been around as long as the sewers themselves it seems. There’s a handful of actual accounts of actual crocs in the sewers around the world. In 1984 one named Elenore was captured in France and lived the rest of her life in an aquarium without eating anyone. But really the big ‘ol crocs that are eating people down there don't seem to happen. There is hope though, I guess.
Croc is about a sewer worker Peter Boggs, a sad-sack drunk-type. Can you blame him where he works? Boggs has worked in the sewers for a long time but in classic buddy-movie tropes he’s partnered up with a younger hot-shot named Marion. Boggs and Marion get stuck investigating a collapsed tunnel, Boggs wants to half-ass it and Marion is eager to do his job.
Marion gets eaten by the croc. Half-ass your job people, it's safer.
Boggs is freaked out since he’s a drunk and has been caught drinking on the job before, so like a rational person he plays dumb and doesn’t tell anyone about his Marion’s death or the crocodile. Including Marion’s wife Andrea and his annoying boss. But that’s a ruse that only goes on so long and Andrea’s wife breaks Bogg’s down and he admits that her husband was eaten by a giant croc. Andrea guilt-trips Bogg’s, hands him a .45 pistol and sends him down to get her revenge.
Being that Bogg’s isn’t a great hero, he gets stuck down there the rest of the book trying his best to kill the croc and stay alive. Soon the nosy cop investigating Marion’s disappearance figures out that there’s a big crocodile down there and then the nosy reporter looking for a scoop figures out the same thing and they all descend into the sewers. Dun-Dun-DUH!
Surprisingly, Croc isn’t high literature. But even with its oft-used premise it’s a solid creature feature effort. Bogg’s is a total loser which isn’t the norm for this kind of book. In the hands of a lesser author tracking the progress of a middle-aged drunk on a crocodile hunting mission that he has no skills for could have been a recipe for sad-boring-disaster. But Hagberg makes Boggs just likable enough to want to follow. He’s sort of everyone’s ne’er-do-well uncle who ruins Thanksgiving but you can’t help but like. The rest of the characters, save Andrea are total stock characters but a creature feature needs stock characters. Andrea is a fairly strong female character and in the world of 70s paperbacks that's a rarity.
So, Croc’s pretty good book, it’s short and to the point with plenty of crocodile attacks and fun characters to keep you flipping pages. It’s still no Alligator (1980) that’s the pinnacle of crocodile/alligators in the sewers story nothing can top it.
Roy Nugen is an award-winning writer, producer, property master, plus actor. He comes from a family of musicians, engineers, wildcatters, cops, lion tamers, and carpet salesmen. Evil Dead II changed his life and he once partied with Lloyd Kaufman.
He has written 15 short films including Bag Full of Trouble, Potboiler, Handle With Care, Death in Lavender, Hole in the Ground, and the feature film Arrive Alive, many of which have played across the country. He has been the property master on 17 short films and 2 feature films.
Roy is also a prolific book reviewer and collector of vintage pulp paperback books. You can read his reviews on his blog Bloody, Spicy Books and multiple magazines including Paperback Fanatic, Hot Lead and Sleazy Reader. He has also written afterwards for novels and for various websites. He lives in the only city that once arrested L. Ron Hubbard with his wife and cats.