Penny Parker Mystery Stories No. 12 - Voice from the Cave

This is definitely the most unusual Penny Parker book to date.  Published in 1944 (same year as Penny Parker #11 - Hoofprints on the Turnkpike, Nancy Drew #21 - The Secret in the Old Attic, and Dana Girls #13 - The Secret in the Old Well), this book is blatantly set in the middle of World War II.  While other series books avoided mentioning the War, Mildred Wirt (Benson) had no hesitancy about using the War as a major element in this mystery.  But that is not what makes this book so different from the rest (so far, at least).  Geoffrey S. Lapin, who knew Wirt and had many discussions with her over the years, says that she revealed to him that the outline for this book was not her own.  She indicated that this was only one of two times where she purchased outlines for books she wrote under her own name.  According to Lapin, Wirt purchased the plot for this story from Andre Norton, who is best known for her science fiction tales (and who I also learned recently wrote some gothic novels under pseudonyms).  Perhaps that is why this story has such a different feel than Wirt's other mysteries in this series.  Let's see...

Voice From the Cave, the twelfth book in the Penny Parker Mystery Stories, opens with Penny waiting on her father to get home so they can leave for their vacation to Sunset Beach.  (And yes, I find it amusing that the place they are going was a television soap opera in the late '90s, but there really is a Sunset Beach community in Huntington Beach, California, which just so happens to contain an "Old Lookout House," which was a former Coast Guard lookout during World War II - coincidence?)  Penny's joy for the coming trip is quickly dashed when Mr. Parker arrives home with a woman in tow - one Mrs. Deline, a widow who has lived in Riverview for less than a month (p. 4).  Mr. Parker seems completely enamored with Mrs. Deline, but Penny can see right away there is something not right about this woman - and thus, from the opening scene, there is a high-level friction between Penny and Mrs. Deline, one which creates a rift between her and her father (which is rather out of character for both Penny and her father, based on the relationship we have seen in the previous eleven books).  

But Mrs. Deline is not the only mystery Penny must face.  While waiting for her father, she is changing dials on the radio and happens across a strange broadcast that begins with, "Attention Comrades" (p. 5) and signs off with the name, "the Voice from the Cave" (p. 5), an obvious reference to the title of the book.  Louise and Mrs. Weems, neither one, heard the broadcast, and when she mentions it to her father, he brushes it off.  This only adds to the growing rift between Penny and Mr. Parker.  It's almost as if Wirt were intentionally crafting circumstances whereby the father/daughter relationship could be broken, leaving Mr. Parker annoyed and Penny upset.  While Penny has always been one to jump to conclusions and act before thinking, she's never been portrayed as a spoiled brat; yet, in this story, she sulks quite a bit, and at one point, her father even tells her she is acting "very stupid and silly" (p. 29).  I never imagined Mr. Parker saying those things to his daughter, particularly after the number of times she has proven herself with the mysteries she has solved in the past (all of which garnered his newspaper some spectacular stories!).  Her father does eventually hear the outlaw station (pp. 38-39), and Penny is surprised to learn that he seems to already be aware of this Voice from the Cave.  It is here that the reader starts to garner some clue as to what Mr. Parker is actually doing in Sunset Beach, and astute readers will figure out why he is acting the way he is (which may have been part of Wirt's plan all along, but it just doesn't read well in those beginning chapters).

Eventually, Louise joins her friend in Sunset Beach, albeit in a confusing way (to the reader). With Penny becoming more frustrated, Mr. Parker offers to pay for "train fare" for Louise to join her (p. 52); however, when the time comes, Penny goes to the airport to pick up her friend, who arrives on a "big silver twin-motor transport) (p. 66).  There is no mention of why Louise came by plane rather than train, nor is there any hint as to whether Mr. Parker paid for the plane instead of a train.  Not sure why the switch, or even if Wirt realized she had originally written Mr. Parker offering train fare rather than plane fare.  Then, as coincidence would have it (and let's be realistic - no children's mystery would be complete without multiple coincidences!), Jerry Livingston arrives by plane at the same time - only he comes in on a Flying Fortress (pp. 67-68).  Readers who have been following the series might remember Jerry signed up to serve in the War, and now he returns in a captain's uniform (p. 68).  He also happens to have a Distinguished Flying Cross medal and a Purple Heart medal on his uniform.  The DFC medal I can understand, but normally, Purple Hearts are only given out to those wounded or killed in battle - and there's no mention of him being wounded.  

So, at this point, we have Mr. Parker going to Sunset Beach to potentially be looking for this mysterious Voice from the Cave.  Now we have Jerry Livingston arriving in full military form to hunt down a prisoner of war who escaped from a Canadian camp (p. 71).  There is the obnoxious Mrs. Deline, who seems to have a strange connection with the man in the lighthouse just down from the hotel where she is staying, and the suspiciously friendly George Emory, who appears all to keen in offering Penny's father aid in tracking down that outlaw station.  Oh, and we musn't forget Jim McCoy, the lighthouse keeper who refuses to allow Penny and Louise to see the lighthouse, but welcomes Mrs. Deline with open arms.  And last, but not least, there is Old Jake Skagway, a beachcomber who may be more than he appears.  The story definitely has its share of characters, but honestly, each of them are pretty transparent, and the reader is not really fooled by any of them.  

Moving on, let's talk about the romantic elements in this story.  I can't recall any of the previous Penny Parker books relying so heavily on romance (or even suspected romance) in the stories, but this one seems saturated with it.  Penny's jealousy of Mrs. Deline, to the point where she tells Louise, "she's aiming to be my stepmother!" (p. 85), seems a bit off-kilter for Penny, and Jerry's reaction upon seeing Penny after he descends from the plane at Sunset Beach - he sweeps her into his arms and kisses her (p. 69), explaining his reaction is what should be expected "when you've not seen your one and only girl"(p. 69).  Since when did that happen?  They've always been friends, and yes, I think readers were always hoping in the previous books that they would eventually get together.  But Jerry has been a reporter for a bit, meaning he is well beyond the age of 18 ... and in this book, Wirt says that Penny has "lived for fifteen happy, eventful years" in Riverview (p. 12).  Wouldn't she be way too young for an adult man to consider as his "one and only girl"?  Now, one could interpret that line about "fifteen happy, eventful years" to mean that perhaps the Parkers had lived elsewhere, and she and her father had only lived in Riverview for fifteen years.  None of the other books ever reference her age, so there is a question here of whether this sentence is meant to indicate she is 15 years old, or whether it simply means she and her father lived in Riverview for fifteen years.

 

Something I have to mention is the picnic basket Mrs. Deline is carrying through the woods when Penny and Louise spy her in Chapter Fifteen.  The hamper is described as heavy (p. 119), but it is not until Penny opens it that the reader discovers it contains food for at least a dozen people, along with a folded wool blanket, as well as men's clothing underneath that (p. 120)!  Seriously?  Food for a dozen people?  Just how big was this hamper?  When Mrs. Deline lay out the food, it includes:  "sandwiches, a salad, cake, cookies, and fruit" (pp. 122-23).  That must have been quite a huge hamper Mrs. Deline was carrying from the hotel, all the way out into the woods.

 

And while we are the subject of strange descriptions, we must consider the drive from Riverview to Sunset Beach.  The seaside resort is said to be "nearby" to Riverview (p. 2) and "within easy driving distance" (p. 28), and after an hour of traveling, Mr. Parker indicates the remaining distance is only about fifty miles (p. 10).  However, he then makes the odd comment that he "can't make much time at thirty-five an hour" (p. 10).  Now, I'm not a whiz at math, but at thirty-five miles per hour, with only fifty miles left to travel, that would only leave about an hour and half travel time before they arrived at the beach.  So, how is it then, they are forced to stop at a hotel for the night rather than finishing the distance - and the description of the travel to Sunset Beach the next morning gives the impression of Penny being cramped in the backseat with the luggage for some time (p. 29).  If there is one thing we've learning reading through these Penny Parker books, it's that Wirt played very loose with her time when writing the stories.

Let's turn our attention to and look at a couple of plot elements that come and go without any resolution.  When Penny and her father first reach the forest near Sunset Beach, where they will be camping, the ranger mentions that "several acres of timber were destroyed by fire at Alton" (p. 33).  Later, he tells Penny that there were plenty of fires farther south (pp. 46-47).  These mentions give readers the impression that perhaps the escaped prisoner was starting fires to distract the authorities; but, no, there's no further mention of any fires, and that plot thread simply disappears.  There's also the matter of the pencil bombs that Mrs. Deline buries in the sand dunes outside the hotel.  When the girls first see her bury them, they see her carrying "a package of considerable size" (p. 103).  Later in the story, when Louise manages to find it, it is a "small package" (p. 169), which contains not only a number of pencil bombs**, but also a knife and some grenades (p. 170).  Did Wirt forget about the size of the package between pages 103 and 169?  Then, when Penny recovers the box, intending to use the pencil bombs to stop the enemy, she opens the box to discover the pencil bombs are no longer there (p. 196).  What happened to them?  How did they disappear? There is no explanation, and the reader is left to wonder if the enemy got them, and if so, why leave the box with the knife and grenades still in it behind?  It's unlike Wirt to leave so many things unexplained...

**By the way, "pencil bombs" are actually real things, incendiary time bombs designed by German chemist Walter Scheeledjge during World War I.  

The final confrontation against the Germans and their comrades on the dunes at Sunset Beach is quite explosive (nearly literally!).  The battle reads less like a standard mystery climax and more like a war novel, or men's adventure story.  A shoot-out (p. 193), a grenade lobbed through the air (p. 196), a desperate last-ditch attempt to stop the enemies from escaping by slashing their rubber boat (p. 196), the sinking of a submarine by a patrol plane (p. 202), and escaping enemy agents captured both on the land and in the sea.  And despite all of these incredible events, Mr. Parker gives Penny the sad news that the story of what just happened "may never be published" (p. 204).  Thus, with everything wrapped up, Penny observes that "this was an A-1 scoop for Uncle Sam!" (p. 204) - definitely giving the book the feel of war propaganda, written to keep the reader rooting for the USA, rather than simply a good children's mystery.  Whether this was because of the outline/plot purchased from Norton, or whether the details of the story were always what Wirt intended for the story to be, I suppose we will never know.

This certainly was not one of the better Penny Parker mysteries.  While I would not necessarily say it was bad (although my fellow book club readers used stronger words than "bad" to describe it, that's for sure!), I would say this probably ranks lowest on the scale for me when it comes to this series.  Let's just hope that with the next book, Wirt returns to her normal writing style.

RATING:  6 overcooked steaks out of 10 for at least not shying away from the War when writing books in the mid-40s.