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.
Hidalgo Trading Co – Chuck Welch – Flearun
Site (c) Chuck Welch | Doc Savage is (TM) Conde Nast
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.
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.