106b 12/45 The Screaming Man

Posted by on Dec 9, 2005 in 1945, Bantam 097-108, clark, degrouchy, larkin, novel, pulp | 2 comments

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From war-ravaged Manila to an ocean liner bound for chaos, Doc races to solve three mysteries at once — the kidnapping of one of his valuable crew, the sinister secret behind a strange dancing girl and the identity of a power-crazed dictator more malevolent that Hitler!


  • Thomas Fortenberry

    The Screaming Man is a kind of cool wartime espionage/spy thriller. It isn’t much of a Doc, as this is the Jimmy Bond-is-bumbling, who-is-Carter?, anxious anti-Doc of those later years where they tried to fix what wasn’t broken with the character. it is also one of those kind of transposed stories where it is Annie Flinders’ tale and Doc is along for the ride as a pursued catalyst.

    My favorite line in the entire book is: “Doc Savage tasted a number of emotions, all of them savoring of damn fool.” Kind of like the reader.

    Well I shouldn’t be too harsh. It is readable, with a credible Japanese-esque war time threat, and the Johnny portion of the adventure is rather hair-raising. It’s just a “different” sort of Doc adventure.

    – Thomas Fortenberry

  • http://DocSavageOrganised Richard Cording

    On this occasion, Thomas, I’m afraid I have to disagree with you — I really enjoyed this yarn and rate it as one of the best later Docs. I’m not overly-fond of the non-super Doc tales, but, owing to Dent’s well-above-average talent as a pulp-writer, Screaming Man actually had me wanting to read more of these. I’d originally encountered the villain of this peice in Will Murray’s The Frightened Fish back in ’94, and a footnote in that novel referenced the fact that Doc and Jonas Sown had met in The Screaming Man. So I kept my eyes peeled for that tale and finally got hold of it last year. As a Doc tale it was excellent. Definitely on my top-10 list.