From: brock@ucsub.Colorado.EDU (Steve Brock)
Subject: Review of The Raiders by Harold Robbins (fiction)
Date: 11 Feb 1995 20:36:27 GMT

THE RAIDERS by Harold Robbins.  Simon and Schuster, 1230 Avenue of
the Americas, N.Y., NY 10020, (800) 223-2336, (212) 698-7007 FAX. 
368 pp., $23.00 cloth.  0-671-87289-3

                     Reviewed by Steve Brock

     The Cord family conflict rages on...  

     I was ten years old in 1961, the year the "The Carpetbaggers"
was published, but I remember my parents discussing the book's
scandalous portrayal of Hollywood lifestyles.  I finally read the
book in my twenties, and agreed with the many critics who announced
that the book singlehandedly defined a genre: schlock - shocking,
with a perceptible lack of literary value.
     In Robbins' sequel to "The Carpetbaggers," the father/son feud
continues as Jonas Cord, Jr. (who suffered from his father's
marrying his lover, Rina, in the previous novel) longs for a son as
he adds to the empire he inherited from Jonas, Sr. in the early
1950s.  But guess who shows up?  Yup, an illegitimate son, named
Jonas Enrique Raul Cord y Batista, from a long-ago liaison with a
Cuban journalist, enters the scene to "assist" Jonas in running his
many enterprises.
     As Jonas seeks to build a casino in Las Vegas, "Bat" moves
into television, and their rivalry draws the honorable (Nevada
Smith) and the disreputable (Jimmy Hoffa, Carlo Gambino, Che
Guevara, John Kennedy, and Maldinesta, the ultimate hit man) into
the fray, along with the unavoidable cast of ravishing wives and
lovers who are just beginning to learn the joys of incest and
administering oral sex.
     Robbins' fans will be pleased with this effort, but in my
opinion, the "grand master" has again penned an embarrassing novel
that is just not much fun.  Reading "The Raiders" makes me wonder
what Jacqueline Susann would have written, had she lived to produce
a sequel to "Valley of the Dolls."  Grade: D.