145g 09/47 Let’s Kill Ames

Posted by on Sep 19, 2007 in 1947, Bantam 145-156, larkin, novel, pulp, rosmond, swenson | 2 comments

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When a beautiful but unscrupulous con-artist gets herself entangled in a poisonous extortion plot, only Doc Savage and his bold crew can discover the hidden antidote for murder.


  • Bryan Bullock

    Yet again with the first person. The woman who tells us this tale sort of brings trouble on herself. She isn’t always tough, but lets say I wouldn’t turn my back on her if she was mad at me. Not a bad story.

  • Thomas Fortenberry

    The title character/narrator of this book, Travice Ames, is another one-of-a-kind event in the Doc Savage series. This is a first-person story told by a woman. Dent was really experimenting with this set of first-person Doc tales and though the mysteries are not great, these stories are truly growing in importance to me simply because of their amazing literary experimentation. Dent was a truly gifted and versatile writer to do this month after month, year after year, and have so much success.

    The Ames character is, in a skewed way, very similar to the narrators of the first two novels in this Omnibus #5. She is as manipulative and unethical as The Monkey Suit’ Henry, but as go-getting and self-determined as Sammy in No Light to Die By. So we love/hate her depending on her mood and actions.

    The main problem with this story is that it is very slow to develop. This wouldn’t be an issue with a longer novel, but this is one of the later, shorter adventures, so when the initial action develops for 5 chapters and then the narrator finally decided in desperation to go to Doc in chapter 6, well, you see what I mean. The book ends at chapter 13. It is simply too long a windup for a short swing.