Pulp of the Week - Doc Savage 41

  

July 1936 - The Black Spot

The Black Spot starts while Pat Savage is attending a costume party with a mobster theme at the ritzy Vandersleeve estate in tony Westchester. The party is so high profile and the guest list so exclusive that a newsreel cameraman is present. When the host is killed, Pat and cameraman Red Mahoney are witnesses and get involved in a real gangster mystery.

The Black Spot is a New York centered tale of villainous intentions penned by Laurence Donovan. A killer has invented an vicious and most mysterious murder technique that leaves the victim dead with only a small black spot on their chest. The killings start out in the ritzi suburbs of the Westchester hills outside of Manhattan. The black spot killer quickly moves to Manhattan and continues to target the super-rich.

This is a much smaller-scale story than Donovan's previous effort, but ultimately far more satisfying. There is tension here, and Donovan writes the team well, with a satisfying, exciting finish. My favorite non-Dent Doc Adventure thus far.

           
The pulp cover is by Walter Baumhofer and the Bantam paperback cover is by Fred Pfeiffer. I'll give The Black Spot a 9 out of 10.

Pulp of the Week - Doc Savage 39

The  Seven Agate Devils - May 1936

This Doc adventure has a couple of firsts - Doc in Los Angeles for an extended period and a bald femme fatale. The story involves a series of killings where a carved agate statue is found next to the victim. This is especially peculiar because the statue's face matches the victims.


After racing around Los Angeles and a faux Malibu, Doc, Monk, and Ham go to a movie location far in the desert out by Palm Springs where the trail of the agate statues has led.

This odd and almost great adventure especially suffers from common ailment of a Doc Savage story running out of pages too fast. The authors (Lester Dent and Harold A. Davis) didn't leave enough room for an adequate conclusion.


The story has thrills and chases, Pacific cliffs and western canyon hideouts. It all rushes by too fast and misses many good opportunities. Hopefully Doc and company will return to Hollywood for a proper classic movie studio adventure. This is not that.

For this review I read the Bantam paperback published March 1973, likely purchased new a few years after that. The evocative paperback cover is by Fred Pfeiffer. I find myself liking the Pfeiffer covers more and more. The pulp cover is by Walter Baumhofer. I got the pulp image from mycomicshop.com. I'll give The Seven Agate Devils a 7 out of 10 - low due to the missed chances and the utterly unsatisfying conclusion. The scenes are exciting, but the story never gelled.

Pulp of the Week - Doc Savage 37

The Metal Master - March 1936

WARNING - EXTRA SPOILERIFIC!

Bring on the super-science! There are no charlatans here, this stuff is all real. This supersaga begins with a young woman escorting an old man to Doc Savage's 86th floor office. The woman, Nan Tester, thinks that Seevers is a bit nuts, but she'd like to meet Savage and see if his reputation is accurate. When they get to the office, they are attacked and Seevers is taken, but Doc gets the girl and hides her in a secret room in his laboratory. Doc pursues Seevers and when he finds him it is too late. He is partially protruding from a blob of metal that used to be a car.

A gang has gotten their mitts on a a piece of gear that causes metal to liquify while it is exposed to the beam. Not good if you are in a car, for instance. The leader of this gang is, of course, The Metal Master.

In one section, Nan Tester asks Doc about the fights between Monk and Ham. He explains, "Years ago, it became evident that the only thing that will stop Monk and Ham from quarreling is for one of the other to get killed."
Nan replies, "Oh! Then they've been like this on other occasions?"
"On practically all other occasions," Doc explained.

There is a lot of good in this Lester Dent book, and really only one fault. They bring back the monkey. Yep, Ham Brook's pet ape returns, just when its seems that we forgot about him. Oh, well, it was good while it lasted. The story explains that Chemistry was quarantined for many months in with customs…

After some globetrotting and gun play, the secrets of the Metal Master are revealed. Oh, and a decent twist plays out for a good bit before being revealed.

I'll give The Metal Master a 7.5 out of 10 due to a few sections where Dent was on autopilot and the monkey. Everything to do with the melting of metal is pretty great. The Pulp cover is by Walter Baumhofer and the Bantam Cover is by Fred Pfeifer.

Pulp of the Week - Doc Savage 30

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August 1935 - Spook Hole

Spook Hole begins in New York with a one-armed man and a seafaring scalawag having a brutal encounter on the docks of Manhattan.

Those docks are an important setting for this adventure. One unique feature of this saga is the number of potential villains that are introduced quite quickly in this adventure.

There is the one-armed man, 

The thug with baseball bat sized bundle of wires wrapped in heavy tape,

The femme fatale, Nancy Law,

The brutal Captain Wapp,

The thug in pursuit, Oliver Orman Braski,

The mysterious Hezemiah Law,

The denizens of the Spook Hole,

And the traitorous sailor, Sass.

There are a number of unusual features of this novel. Pat Savage makes a brief but memorable appearance. In one scene, Doc's unconcious trilling gives him away. There is also an interesting aside about how a few years earlier there was a boom in small airports. "... airports mushroomed up with great frequency around New York, not a few of them be located in spots so unhandily located that only the enthusiastic promoters dreamed they would ever be useful in a practical way. The result is that at present many weed-grown flying fields are eyesores in the suburbs."

There are the usual fights, shootouts, disguises, and in the end the deep mystery of the Spook Hole itself.

For this review I read my battered Bantam copy that I bought at a library book sale many decades ago. The book was published in Sept 1972. The paperback cover is an iconic one by Fred Pfeiffer. Visit the Pfeiffer Pfiles blog for more information about this great painter. The pulp cover is by Walter Baumhofer. The interior illustrations are by Paul Orban and once again come from Chris Kalb's great Doc site.

I'll give Spook Hole a 7 out of 10. There is far too much mucking around back and forth in New York and not nearly enough of interest once they get to the Spook Hole.

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Pulp of the Week - Doc Savage #16

The King Maker - June 1934

This Doc Savage adventure was written by Harold A. Davis. It was the first not written by Lester Dent (though it is widely accepted that Dent edited it) and finds Doc and his men traveling to the Eastern European Kingdom of Calbia, where a coup is in the making. The Calbian Ambassador to the US is murdered in New York and Doc rescues the Princess Gusta LeGalbin.

He is quite taken with her. "Ordinarily, feminine beauty left the bronze man untouched, for he had schooled his tastes so carefully that they did not run in that direction. But now he stared, and his strong lips, parting a little from amazement, showed even white teeth."

When she is free, he offers her his arm and she drugs him. He is taken to Calbia by the resistance and is offered the chance to be King. Doc, of course declines.

Some interesting phrases used are "twittering" and "political prisoners."

For me, the highlight of the book is Renny getting to play the part of a boisterous American pilot named Champ Dugan. Renny plays it with gusto and gets some great scenes.

The book was good, not great, but the Renny scenes and the interplay between the Princess and Doc are very good.

I give The King Maker a 7.5 out of 10. The pulp cover is by Walter Baumhofer and the Bantam cover is by Fred Pfeiffer. The King Maker features two of my favorite Doc Savage paintings - both the original pulp cover and the Bantam cover for this book are terrific.

Pulp of the Week - Doc Savage #15

May 1934 - The Mystery on the Snow

This is an interesting adventure for a number of reasons. For one, it takes a very long time - maybe 2/3rds of the novel to even find out what the mystery is about. Secondly, Lester Dent, finally gave archaeologist/geologist William Harper Littlejohn a voice. And what a phantasmically multisyllabic glorious voice it is. This is the first of the sagas to include what would become Johnny's catch phrase, "I'll be superamalgamated!"

As with the other adventurers so far there is a feisty dame, Midnat D'Avis. She is a private detective hired by a Canadian prospector to contact Doc Savage for help. A mystery man known only a Stroam. Other characters include a faux mystic and some Canadian Mounties.

One of the mysteries of The Mystery on the Snow is spoiled by the Bantam cover. But it is a minor point and so much hay is made in the story to convince us that this wasn't, couldn't possibly be the answer that we are sure it is the solution to the mystery.

The villains identity becomes clear just as we should know it, so that was satisfying. All in all, The Mystery on the Snow is a satisfying Doc Savage tale.

The pulp cover is by Walter Baumhofer and and Bantam paperback #69 has a fascinating cover, full of texture and depth, by Fred Pfeiffer. For this review, I read my Bantam paperback, first edition July, 1972 and give The Mystery on the Snow 7.5 out of 10.