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!

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