Men by the name of Smith were being knocked off all over town. And they were all killed by lightning -- lightening that entered a room without leaving any marks, on a day when there was no lightning. As the Man of Bronze penetrated ever closer to the heart of this mystery, he was scared. For he knew he was closer to death than possibly at any other time in his hair-raising career.

I thought this book was terrible. The only things I really liked about it are 1) the cover... I love Boris's art. I wish he had the chance to do more Doc covers. I like him as much as Bama... each gives their own unique quality to Doc... and the second thing I liked about this book was a description of a fat guy getting struck by the mysterious lightning that seems to come out of nowhere. Morbid maybe, but it was the best scene of this loser of a story. (no offense to fat people, or to those who have been struck by lightning) It would be interesting to hear other comments on this story, because opinions seem to be so different on a lot of the Doc stories. Did anybody love THE BOSS OF TERROR?

I would rate it as average, Scott. I liked the way Doc saved Long Tom. I thought the opening sequence with Monk & Ham was one of their funniest scenes. As I recall (I haven't reread this one in a while) there was a lot of doublecrossing going on.

Not Doc's finest hour to be sure. A killer obsessed with killing people named Smith? That's as dull as the name Smith (no offense to those named Smith). And a lame electricity mystery. Yawn. Next!

This is definitely one of the weaker Docs. Here we have what I call the small-time mystery: a local setting, revolving around extortion basically, the ye olde businessmen at risk plot. Not the average Doc globe-trotting and earth-shattering adventure.

That said, I have an interesting take on this book: I believe it is one of the precursors of The Avenger series, which, in fact, Lester Dent helped create and one of the ghostwriters of Doc actually wrote. Here's my thoughts: The Avenger often dealt with these smalltime type of crimes, especially the local businessmen crimes variety. Benson was greatly affected by one (his origin) and The Avenger series began on such a note. The Boss of Terror opens with Doc and gang taking out a gigantic chauffeur for a wealthy man. Monk and Ham have a lot of trouble fighting him and are actually scared of the behemoth, who can really fight. sound familiar yet? The driver, unnamed, is so large that Doc takes his place without anyone noticing. The chauffeur drives for one of the Smiths of the John Smith Club attacked in this book, John "Radiator" Smith. Is it hard to go from a massive driver of a Smith to a massive chauffeur named Smith? Smitty anyone? And the electrical murder device was also in an Avenger novel, I believe, or is so similar it shoulda/coulda been.

Anyway, I was wondering if this book could be one of the creative elements that went into The Avenger. Seems to parallel in a few ways.

Thomas Fortenberry