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Donald Sobol (1924 to 2012) was an American writer, born in New York City, earned a degree in English at Oberlin College in Ohio, and served two years in World War II with the Army Corps of Engineers (the Army equivalent of the famed Navy Seabees) in the Pacific theater. He wrote mainly children’s literature and is by far best-known for his Encyclopedia Brown mystery series. Reading these as a kid gave me a taste for mystery and detective literature (Sherlock Holmes by Doyle and Lord Peter Wimsey by Sayers) as I got older. Lesser-known but still a lot of fun is Sobol’s one juvenile spy thriller, Secret Agents Four. I use the word “thriller” loosely, as this is quite a light-hearted book and very funny.
Ken Mullins’ father is an assistant director of the Miam, Florida branch of MONGOOSE, the United States’ premier counter-spy agency. The Man from Uncle had THRUSH, James Bond had SMERSH, and Donald Sobol invented COBRA to be the chief evil criminal spy organization opposed to MONGOOSE. Of course, in the natural world, the mongoose is the main enemy of the cobra (sometime read the famous story Rikki-Tikki-Tavi by Rudyard Kipling to appreciate that fact). The sixteen-year-old Ken and his three friends, Orv Davy, a talented (and a little bit crazy) inventor, Bo Johnson, a seven-foot-tall master athlete, and Jerry Kates, nicknamed Horseshoes, together decide to help MONGOOSE fight COBRA when they accidentally get involved in one of COBRA’s nefarious schemes. The four boys invent a name for themselves, after several hilarious failed attempts: V.A.C.U.U.M., which stands for Volunteer Agents Crusading Unsteadily Under Mongoose. They are aided by Ken’s friend Mary, whose code name is B.A.G. = Beautiful Assistant Gangbuster and who is an expert in judo. With that beginning, and the aid of antique cars, a World War I fighter plane, and several of Orv’s inventions, the story can’t help getting zanier and zanier as VACUUMBAG fights evil!