172n 11/46 The Devil is Jones

Posted by on Nov 11, 2006 in 1946, Bantam 169-180, degrouchy, larkin, novel, pulp, ravel | 3 comments

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A man, a woman, or the devil himself: who — or what — is the elusive, mysterious Jones? Doc better find out quick, before he’s framed for murder!


  • http://docsavage.org Chuck Welch

    This didn’t seem like a Doc Savage novel. I found this Doc closer to Chandler’s Marlowe.

    And that’a good thing. Sure, Clark Savage, Jr. P.I. isn’t as exciting as “The Man of Bronze,” but the myster jholds up and the twists and turns are plausible.

    Fans of the crew will be disappointed though. The only two who show up — Monk and Ham — are barely involved in the story.

    Nevertheless, coming on the heels of my last read — The Derelict of Skull Shoal — my faith is renewed in Lester Dent.

  • Todd Pence

    Chuck is right. This one doesn’t read like a Doc Savage novel at all, and Doc seems oddly out of character in several places. I wonder if this was a story that Dent originally wrote for another character and then reworked into a Doc Savage novel.

  • Tim Bateman

    I read this one a few years ago now, and recall liking it – one of those low-key postwar Docs of which I am really rather fond. I do seem to recall reading somewhere that this is a re-written Dent story originally without Doc – a detective novel Dent was for whatever reason unable to place.

    There’s another Lester Dent innovation about fifty years ahead of the rest of the world – recycling!