World War II is drawing to a close. Hitler rigs an assassination of a look-alike double in a daring plot to save his ruined Reich — then disappears. America calls on its greatest hero — Doc Savage — to track down this most evil of adversaries and stop the phony martyrdom. Joining him in this last-ditch crusade are a wide assortment of Allied agents — one of whom may be the fleeing Fuhrer himself! (Bantam renamed this: “The Hate Genius”)
This one left a strange taste in my mouth. It was the first of the later Docs I tried and I read after a steady diet of “classic” Doc. Being new to the series I didn’t know what to expect and the change in the characters threw me for a loop at first. It’s interesting that we never know for sure if it is Hitler Doc is after or whether he finds him or not. But the idea alone is worth the price of admission and I, for one, like to believe the Man Of Bronze got his man in the end.
This has a great Larkin cover that could very well have been visualized by Bama. As for the story, all I remember is that it wasn’t all that bad. It took quite some time before Doc was involved in the war effort–sometime in 1942 stories started appearing that mentioned a “war” going on “over in Europe”. By 1943, it was clear that the war was afoot. This time, though, Dent had the Nazis to deal with and this is a story that goes down well. I believe that it has something in common with Will Murray’s “The Frightened Fish”. However, the pulp cover by Modest Stein is really good. Stein had been illustrating pulps for at least 30 years and is one of the underrated pulp artists of his time. (Though he did have his stinkers as well. But his illustrations for Street and Smith’s Love Story Magazine were matchless and dazzling.)
It’s true that this is not the novel it could have been. But, you have to admit that Pat Savage kicking Hitler in the nuts is probably the single greatest moment in the entire Doc Savage saga.
It’s true that this is not the novel it could have been. But, you have to admit that Pat Savage kicking Hitler in the nuts is probably the single greatest moment in the entire Doc Savage saga.
Just finished The Hate Genius by Lester Dent (Originally
titled: Violent Night.) This was the Bantam reprint from 1979. Nice Bob Larkin
cover. I got a good reading copy off of Amazon. It was a fun, rambling sort of
post-war espionage tale. Late in the Doc canon (January 1946). This of course
is the Doc adventure where he goes after Hitler. A pretty quick read at 119
pages. I liked it overall although there were a few parts with some choppy
continuity (if not simply poor proofing/editing.) There is a scene where Pat is
kidnapped (along with Monk and Ham) and handcuffed to a “dead-faced” Nazi goon.
The goon tries to take her though a double hotel door situation with a
frame/jam that Pat manages to get her and the goon caught up in with the
handcuff links. Pat ends up getting out of the situation by flagging down some
Allied Shore Patrol on the street by coming up with a quick story about how she
is a lady detective and could use some help with her prisoner. The part that
bugged me though was that Dent never explains how Pat got out of the handcuffs that
were placed on her at the start of the kidnapping. They’re just not mentioned
anymore at the end of the scene…. Later, Lester also takes great pains to have
Doc and the Allied Intelligence guys keep information from the meddling Pat
about a secondary story villain named “Carter.” Further on in the story –
there’s no mention of how – but Pat (along with the story’s other female
protagonist Barni Cuadrado) appears to speak as if she knows all about Carter’s
double-agent activities. So, a couple minor things that managed to make me go
“Huh?” – and slow an otherwise
reasonably tight little spy story. Pat Savage almost gets more mention than Doc
in this book – and definitely has the better action scenes. So, if you’re a Pat
fan – this one’s for you. Monk and Ham are along and are kind of important at
the beginning and the end, but otherwise there’s not a lot of involvement from
Doc’s aids. Barni Cuadrado is a pretty lackluster female as far as the Doc
series goes but Dent seems intent throughout at hinting about how intrigued with her Doc is. Sort of odd I
thought, as she’s pretty cardboard . The Hitler/Nazi angle alone though – makes
me glad I read this one.