The Girl Flyers on Adventure Island (The Girl Flyers Series, Book 2 of 2)

This second book in The Girl Flyers series was a gift from a wonderful friend who found out I had bought the first book, so he graciously gave me this book so I would have a complete set.  The first book was a fairly decent read, so I had expectations that this one would be just as good.  The inside front flap of the dust jacket provides the exact same blurb that was used with the first book, so going into the story, I had no idea what to expect from it, as the blurb only gave a general overview of the series as a whole (and, surprisingly, gives away the identity of the culprits from the first book).  

The Girl Flyers on Adventure Island picks up very shortly after the ending of the first book. This is a rare occurrence in series books, as they usually do not connect with one another so closely.  Terry and Prim Mapes are flying down to South America on a mission to purchase the land on which their father, Dick Mapes, had established his flying field.  The option to purchase the land is just about ready to expire, and the girls must make it to the wilds of Peru to get the money to Peter Langley before their father's competition, Joe Arnold, convinces Langley to sell it to him.  Now, I did find it rather odd that the author makes several references to the events of the last book, yet fails to answer the question of how Joe Arnold and his lackey, Bud Hyslop, escaped their fate from the end of the last story (those that may recall, Joe's plane was crashing towards the water in a fog bank, where they were believed to have lost their lives!).  I guess that is one mystery that will remain unsolved...

From the stops along the way, the author has the girls travel down the East Coast, and they eventually make a stop in Miami before heading on to Havana - readers even get a too-brief mention of the "keys and reefs of the Florida coast spread out flat on the blue water" (p. 29).  Then, upon arriving in Havana, they sign "the grim old Morro Castle, the Spanish fort" (p. 29), which is actually a real place - Castillo del Morro, a defense fort located at the etrnce of the Port of Havana.  It is here where the girls are forced to wait for the arrival of their father's students, Allan and Syd - a fact that displeases Terry very much (as she believes her father thinks the two girls cannot handle the job without the boys there to watch over them!).  It turns out, though, the boys just want to join the fun as a bit of vacation and have no intention on interfering with the girls' task - but when they find out Joe Arnold is tailing them, the four decide it is a good thing they are all together to face the enemy.

It's not until Chapter III - Tropic Storm that the story takes on the more dangerous elements.  Terry and Prim in their Skybird, and the boys in their Fleetwings, try to escape a horrific storm in the Caribbean but end up flying right into it.  Their planes are put through the worst of tests, and by the time they come out of the other side of the storm, the girls are forced to land at the first island they come upon.  Before they even have a chance to think about repairs to the plane, they come face to face with Joe Arnold and Bud Hyslop, who are engaged in some rather illegal activities on the island - using the natives of the island as their slave labor!  Needless to say, they have no intention of letting the girls leave and reveal their location to the authorities, so Terry and Prim are taken captive while Bud takes off with the Skybird!  But, as is usually the case with situations like this in series books, the natives befriend the girls due to Joe Arnold's horrific treatment of them, and they eventually help the girls escape the clutches of the villains!

"Adventure Island" is an apt description of the island, for there is plenty of adventure that the girls experience while there.  The author has them traipsing through the jungle, hiding in native huts, exploring hidden caves, and doing everything they can to outwit their enemies.  The manner in which they signal for help is rather creative, but it's all too convenient that the boys happen to fly over the island and see it at just the right time.  Once again, coincidence is the go-to trope for series book authors.  

While there was never any third book published in this series, the end of the story does indicate that the girls would "face grave dangers and many times would escape with their lives only be a hair's breadth" in the Land of the Incas, leading one to think the next book might have been titled The Girl Flyers in the Land of the Incas had one been published.  And since Terry and Prim outwitted Joe and Bud by getting to Langley and paying him for their father's land before the option expired, it can be speculated that the two dastardly men would have appeared once again in the third book to compete against the girls in searching for the lost Incan treasure!

Something else I noticed in these books is that like nearly all Goldsmith books I've read, the first chapter begins on page 11 - however, unlike the other books, this one actually has 10 pages prior to it (most of them simply being blank pages).  That came as a surprise, since most of them only have 8 pages or less before that first page of the first chapter - so it was a refreshing surprise to see the page number actually match the number of pages.

The cover art, again provided by "F. Rigney" and, like the first book, features a very unexciting scene of the girls with a man who readers can assume is either their father or perhaps one of the men who serviced the plane at any one of the stops along the way down to Peru.  There is no sense of danger, no sense of mystery, and honestly, no sense of adventure to the cover at all.  Perhaps if the cover art for these two books had featured scenes with a little more drama, the books may have drawn more readers to them and sold well enough to warrant at least one more book.  But, alas, the Girl Flyers only had the two adventures - in Canada and in the Caribbean - before hanging up their flying togs.

RATING:  8 silver necklaces with bright pendants out of 10 for adventure, danger, and a nice send-off story for the Girl Flyers!