094 01/45 Violent Night
World War II is drawing to a close. Hitler rigs an assassination of a look-alike double in a daring plot to save his ruined Reich — then disappears. America calls on its greatest hero — Doc Savage — to track down this most evil of adversaries and stop the phony martyrdom. Joining him in this last-ditch crusade are a wide assortment of Allied agents — one of whom may be the fleeing Fuhrer himself! (Bantam renamed this: “The Hate Genius”)
This one left a strange taste in my mouth. It was the first of the later Docs I tried and I read after a steady diet of “classic” Doc. Being new to the series I didn’t know what to expect and the change in the characters threw me for a loop at first. It’s interesting that we never know for sure if it is Hitler Doc is after or whether he finds him or not. But the idea alone is worth the price of admission and I, for one, like to believe the Man Of Bronze got his man in the end.
This has a great Larkin cover that could very well have been visualized by Bama. As for the story, all I remember is that it wasn’t all that bad. It took quite some time before Doc was involved in the war effort–sometime in 1942 stories started appearing that mentioned a “war” going on “over in Europe”. By 1943, it was clear that the war was afoot. This time, though, Dent had the Nazis to deal with and this is a story that goes down well. I believe that it has something in common with Will Murray’s “The Frightened Fish”. However, the pulp cover by Modest Stein is really good. Stein had been illustrating pulps for at least 30 years and is one of the underrated pulp artists of his time. (Though he did have his stinkers as well. But his illustrations for Street and Smith’s Love Story Magazine were matchless and dazzling.)
It’s true that this is not the novel it could have been. But, you have to admit that Pat Savage kicking Hitler in the nuts is probably the single greatest moment in the entire Doc Savage saga.