Few had known of the ancient Mayan kingdom which provided Doc Savage with billions of dollars in precious gold to finance his unceasing fight against evil. Threatened by The Leader and his international band of cutthroat warriors, the amazing Man of Bronze cunningly battles for the financial security and future peace of the entire world.
It’s obvious this isn’t a Dent story. Davis’ style offers more exposition and the bare minimum of dialogue. I really enjoyed when The Leader wanted to tell Doc his evil plan and Doc replied he didn’t need to hear it — he already knew. Wait, it gets better, The Leader then didn’t explain anyway! He just broke bad guy rule #47!
Even better was this gem: “Among the shattered fragments that had been men, had been found a queer substance, several pieces of it, in fact. That substance had been tested. It was crimson-soaked underwear of the type only Doc and his men wore.”
My new favorite line from any Doc novel.
Aaaaah, this one has such potential for an emotional Doc. But no, the ending is wrapped up in a few paragraphs and we’ll never know what effect it had on Doc to return to the scene of his first adventure. The villains still respect all the bad guy rules that say that you shouldn’t kill the hero right away but wait to give him an horrible death, giving him a chance to escape. Still liked it.
As a sequel to The Man Of Bronze, this one could have been better. But as a stand alone story it isn’t too bad. The different writing style is a change of pace but one should begin this tale if one is looking for rip-snorting, high pace adventure. I liked the hand of death and the threat, toppling the world’s gold markets, was one only Doc could stop. But the execution doesn’t live up to the potential with this novel.
Oddly, the first half of this novel reminded me of a Spider novel, I guess because it involved millions of dollars on New York markets . . . but alas, the novel really doesn’t amount to much. The “delayed” execution of Doc is, I think, just a corner the writer (Harold Davis?) got himself into and simply wiggled his way out of. But this is also a 1937 novel where Dent and his ghosts seemed to be getting weary with their monthly writing chore with Doc. Good novels appear here and there (such as The Living Fire Menace), but the basic excitement and verve of the early Docs are gone. (I really think this has more to do with the Great Depression and the Recession of 1937 that almost crippled Roosevelt’s administration than anything else. It wasn’t a fun decade and perhaps it was starting to affect the writers of Doc Savage. This happened to The Spider and The Shadow as well.)
I don’t know why some fans grumble about this one
I agree with Mark above — this one really rocks! I have to say that it’s one of the best Doc Savage tales I’ve read in some time; the action is fast-paced, the villain supremely villainous and the fact that it’s set in Hidalgo just increases the excellence. Funnily enough, I’ve made a quick mental tally of the Doc’s that I’ve enjoyed most over the years, and the majority of them have been ghost-written! Donovan/Danberg used to be my favourite ghost-writer ( despite the truly awful MURDER MELODY), but now Harold Davis is nudging his way up there after this one ( despite the equally awful MOUNTAIN MONSTER)!
Davis really builds up the air of fear and loathing around his super-villans…he really illustrates over and over how truly horrible and evil they are. Unfortunately, he goes a little overboard. And then there are the intevitible instant-identity changes that he throws into every story he writes, where characters change appearance so quickly and so perfectly, and under such unbeleivable circumstances that they are just that; unbeleivable.
Not withstanding all the critcisms, this is still a fun read…just not one of the best Docs.