Jane, Stewardess of the Air Lines - a Goldsmith Book for Boys and Girls

Since I've been enjoying the books by Ruthe S. Wheeler (or Graham M. Dean, as has been alleged), I thought I'd go ahead and read another of her (his) books from back in the day.  While not part of any particular series, it is included in the "Books for Girls" published by Goldsmith, under which banner a number of series were published - the 2-book Janet Hardy series, the 4-book Penny Nichols series, the 2-book Peggy Stewart series, the 4-book Dorothy Dixon series, among a number of single titles.  I regret spending so many years thinking title published by Goldsmith, Saalfield, and Whitman were inferior in quality simply because the art and paper did not compare with the bigger publishers - I have discovered a number of really great books by these publishers, and this happens to be one of those!

Jane, Stewardess of the Air Lines was published back in 1934, some twelve years prior to the Patty O'Neal book published by Whitman (Patty O'Neal on the Airways), which also dealt with a stewardess - only the books are reversed.  In Patty O'Neal, a girl wanting to learn how to fly eventually becomes a stewardess, while in this book, a girl who becomes a stewardess gets a desire to learn how to fly!  No real mysteries in this story (well, unless you want to count the very brief episode in which an entire group of passengers, along with Jane herself, become violently ill after someone poisons their food); rather, this book is more about Jane's career as a stewardess and the many adventures she finds along the way - and boy, is this girl a magnet for trouble!

I think one of the most interesting aspects of this book is that when the story opens, Jane Cameron and her best friend, Sue Hawley, are attending their graduation from Good Samaritan hospital in University City, where they are both receiving their nursing diplomas.  It is after the graduation ceremony that they are informed by the supervisor of nurses that Federated Airways is looking for girls to serve as stewardesses on their flights, a new service being offered.  I never thought of nurses moving into the field of flight attendants (or stewardesses as they were referred to back then, since it was only women who served in those roles); however, some research revealed that way back in 193e0, a registered nurse by the name of Ellen Church is the one credited with convincing Boeing that having nurses aboard their flights would be of great assistance to passengers, and Boeing agreed - hiring female nurses at a salary of $125 per month (Commercial Flight in the 1930s).  Wheeler must have been aware of this salary, because in this book, Jane and Sue are offered $125 per month in their new positions with Federated Airways (p. 52).   That's not exactly an extravagant salary, considering that in today's money, that would equate to only $2,894.83 per month!  According to the research, the height and weight requirements of 5'4" or shorter and 118 lbs or lighter also coincides with the requirements Wheeler writes into her story (p. 19).

With regard to the story, Jane and Sue find themselves in one tight spot after another without any break!  On their first training flight with several other stewardesses-in-training, the plane they are on crashes, and the girls are forced to help their teacher rescue the pilot and co-pilot before the plane explodes!  From there, Jane gets called to assist an extremely wealthy woman as a private stewardess in her cross-country flight to see her ailing son in New York.  Before you know it, aerial bandits are forcing the plane down to take Mrs. Van Verity Vanness (gotta love that name!) for ransom!  They manage to evade the bandits, and Jane is rewarded not once, but twice - first, with a check for $500 from a newspaper who wants an exclusive story of the plane's bout with the bandits (p. 139), which was definitely no small sum back in the day, the value of which today would be more than $11,000; and second, with a $1,000 bonus (p. 142) from Ms. Vanness herself - which would have been a HUGE bonus for the day, as such amount would be worth $23,308.36 in today's money!  Off that one incident, Jane certainly got rich!  Oh, and that reporter from the newspaper who got the exclusive - her name was "Ruthe" Harrigan (p. 139).

Wheeler does not provide her heroine a time to rest, for before you know it, Jane ends up taking on the role of a stunt pilot (she had been taking lessons from a rather handsome pilot who was showing her favor and attention) in a movie being filmed at the Federated Airways airfield in Cheyenne - a role that nearly costs her her life when the plane does not function as it goes flying towards the ground!  Jane jumps out and parachutes to safety as the planes crashes in a ball of fire and metal, all while being filmed (making it the best crash scene filmed by the camera crew!).  From here, Penny and her teacher are called upon to travel to a remote town to deliver some much needed medicine for sick children during a turbulent storm, and, of course, the plane is forced down - but they make it out alive, just in time to get the medicine to the children, saving their lives.  And without time to blink, Jane then heads off on yet another flight, on which a child movie star and his mother are aboard - along with two unsavory men who end up hijacking the plane and taking the child, his mother, and Jane hostage!  But Jane manages to outwit them, using their own sea plane as a means for her to escape with the star and his mother.

I think Jane says it best as the book ends, just one year after she and Sue become stewardesses:  "Jut think how much more can happen in the coming year," replied Jane, wondering vaguely what new adventure might be ahead of them.  Good grief, after everything they went through in just that one year, one would think the poor girl would want a break from it all!

The cover art depicts the scene from the first airplane crash in which Jane is involved, as she watches the plane go up in flames.  And I love how the cover art extends over onto the spine as well (with part of the burning wing and one of the young stewardesses running from the wreckage visible there). That same "Two Taylors" signature that adorned the covers of the Janet Hardy books appears here as well.  I would love to know just who that is....

This was a good read, and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys vintage children's series books, even though it does not have any mystery element to it.   I'd call it more of a career girl / adventure story.

RATING:  9 prepared lunches of sandwiches and salads out of 10 for high-flying adventure and danger wrapped up in a wonderful story with a truly likable young heroine!

 

Janet Hardy in Radio City - Book Two of the Janet Hardy Series

So, after enjoying the first Janet Hardy novel so much, I did not want to wait long to read the second book in this series.  Interestingly, the copy of this second book that I have is larger and thicker than the first book.  My copy of Janet Hardy in Hollywood measures only 5" x 7.5", while my copy of this book measures a bit over 5.5" x 8".  Additionally, Hollywood is only a bit over one inch in thickness, while this book is nearly one-and-a-half inches thick.  The additional thickness is likely due to the heavier paper stock used for this book, as I noticed the pages are nowhere near as thin and brittle as the first book.  Both have a copyright of 1935, so I honestly don't know if one is an earlier printing than the other, or if all copies of these books were printed in these different formats.  Regardless, the dust jacket contains the same cover art, with the same description of the series on the inside front flap.  And this second book picks up literally right where Hollywood left off...

Janet Hardy in Radio City opens with Janet and her best friend, Helen, getting ready for their next acting gig - another western filmed by Billy Fenstow and starring Curt Newsome. Author Ruthe S. Wheeler (who, it has been suggested, is actually a pseudonym used by Graham M. Dean) manages to get in a recap of the previous book in the first chapter, giving new readers a quick review of how the girls came to be in Hollywood and the adventures they had filming their first movie.  Interestingly, this book follows the same pattern as the first book with regard to how the story advances.

The first half of the book is spent in Hollywood, with the girls starring in the new film, Water Hole, which is being filmed on location at a secluded ranch.  The film crew and cast get on a bus (hmmm, if you've read the first book, perhaps you can see where this might be heading) and head out to the desert to film the movie.  Oddly enough, when the film is near completion, Janet and Helen's nemesis from back home, Cora Dean and her lackey, Margie Blake, show up at the ranch and manage to talk themselves into a bit part during the crowd scene at the end of the film.  They quickly leave, and it's a good thing they do - because when the film crew heads back to Hollywood on the bus, they have one mishap after another.  The bus breaks down; they get it fixed, and then it breaks down worse; then they discover there is a brush fire heading their way; and just when they get the bus fixed and head out, they have a flat tire!  By the time they make it back to the ranch, the fire is well on its way - and they once again hop onto the bus and head for higher ground.  They manage to find a stream with a bank nearby under which they can hide from the flaming onslaught.  It is a weary, damaged group that walk their way slowly back to the ranch, where all of the buildings have been burned to the ground - and just when they think all hope of help is gone, Helen's father shows up with a rescue team to help get the girls and the film crew back to Hollywood!  (And in case you missed the first book, there is a similar scenario in the first book where Janet, Helen, and their school friends are trapped on a bus in the middle of a deadly blizzard, and it is Janet's father who shows up in the nick of time - from the freezing cold of a blizzard to the deadly heat of a desert and fire!  And in both instances, buses were involved!)

The second half of the book follows Janet and Helen as they return home to not only register for college, which the plan to attend in the fall, but also to ready themselves for a ten-day trip to New York City, where they will join several other cast members of the film to promote the movie filmed in the last book over a radio broadcast.  The girls take a rather lengthy train trip (from their midwestern home town of Clarion - which, there is such a town in Iowa - through Chicago and on to Jersey City, before taking a ferry to New York City), and their arrival in the Big Apple is filled with awe as they take in the wonders of the skyscrapers and crowds.  Curt Newsom is there, and they meet the radio director, Ben Adolphi, as well as fellow radio star Rachel Nesbit, who thinks quite a bit of herself and takes an instant dislike to Janet.  (Again, this scenario seems very reminiscent of the second half of the first book!)  As with the previous book, the second act is where the mystery comes in, as someone steals a manuscript that Janet had been working on in her hotel room, and there is a suspicion that someone in the radio drama is intending to lead the movie's plot and ending in order to stop World Broadcasting Company from getting the rights to air this radio preview of the film.  Needless to say, Janet ends up in the thick of things, and she gets chloroformed (but not kidnapped this time, thankfully), there's another theft, a car chase, and an ultimate showdown with the culprits behind the sabotage, which results in Janet and Helen both being offered jobs at WBC as a writer and actress, respectively!

Despite the mystery not being central to the entire story, I still enjoyed reading this one as much as I did the first. Janet and Helen remain very likable characters, and even though the author follows the same format with both books, the stories are actually pretty engaging.  I became interested in knowing whether Janet and Helen would actually sign on with the studio and stay in Hollywood, or whether they would go home to pursue their college education.  And, yes, the saboteurs of the radio program are fairly obvious from the moment they are introduced, but it doesn't make the mystery any less exciting, as you find yourself rooting for Janet and Curt to stop the culprits before they get away with the manuscript and ruin the station's chance at getting the studio's contract.  My only wish is that Goldsmith had included internal illustrations, like nearly all of the other publishers did at the time, even if it was only a frontis piece.

With this, the adventures of Janet Hardy come to a close, as Goldsmith did not offer up any more books in this series.  I have to wonder if it was because sales were not high enough to warrant more, or if the author was simply not interested in writing more tales of these characters.  At this point, I suppose it doesn't matter, as no more Janet Hardy stories were publishers, and fans like me are left to cherish the two we do have.

RATING:  9 glowing masses of steel out of 10 for keeping these midwestern girls hopping from one coast to the other, and taking them from film to radio!

Flyin' Jenny - the collected strips

This is a collected edition I picked up on a complete lark.  I was in the Half-Price Bookstore in either Kentucky or Georgia (can't recall which at this point), and I happened to see this hanging in a plastic bag near the front counter.  I was curious as to whether this was some kind of magazine, or prose story, or a comic book, so I had the young lady behind the counter take it out so I could examine it.  Imagine my surprise to discover it was a collected edition of a newspaper strip from the late 1930s and early 1940s about a young woman flyer.  The price was definitely right, so I picked it up and brought it home, and I have finally sat down to give it a read.

Flyin' Jenny was a little known newspaper strip that ran from 1939 through 1946 (so I don't think this book collects all the published strips, although I could be wrong).  According to the introduction, the original creator, writer, and artist for the strip, Russell Keaton, graduated from flying school himself and obtained a pilot's license the same year this strip was first published.  Flyin' Jenny came out just two years after Amelia Earhart made her fateful flight, and as indicated in this book's introduction, the character was inspired by a real plane, the JN-40 World War I training plane affectionately referred to as the flying jenny (based on its call letters).  The young aviatrix who is the star of the strip is a blonde pilot who is not only a superstar at flying, but she also knows the mechanics of the planes she flies.  

The strip was distributed by the Bell Syndicate, and it ran both daily and Sunday strips, although the daily strip had a different ongoing storyline than the Sunday pages.  Researching the strip and its creator online, I discovered that while Keaton drew the strip from its inception until he fell in the mid-1940s, he gave up the writing chores to Frank Wead, and later, Glen Chaffin.  By 1942, Gladys Parker began drawing the strip, and ultimately Keaton's assistant, Marc Swayze took over the art until the strip ended in 1946 (a year after Keaton passed away at the age of 35 from acute leukemia).  The strips collected in this edition are all signed by Keaton, so I'm assuming these are the initial strips from 1930 until possible early 1940.  I wish Arcadia Publications, who printed this collection, would have collected more, as I would love to see where the strip and its characters went from here!

The art is magnificent.  I'm not sure, but I'm guessing Arcadia enlarged the panels for this publication, as there are only six panels per page, and they are considerably larger than a normal size panel you would see on the funny pages in the newspaper.  The line art, though, is magnificent - and while the characters themselves are a bit on the cartoony-side at times, the backgrounds are fleshed out nicely, and the aerial shots are amazing and spacious, giving the reader a real sense of being in the open air.  Jenny Dare herself is drawn as a beautiful blonde bombshell, despite her pants and leather jacket, and her hair style is a typical grown-out bob, with lots of voluminous curling at the bottom (sort of the same look Russell Tandy gave the original Nancy Drew on those early covers in the 1930s).  While Jenny does not have any boyfriends to speak of in these early strips, it's clear that the men admire her for her beauty and her brains!

The stories are fairly simple in the beginning.  The strip opens in this collection with Jenny getting hired by the Swiftwing Aero Fuel Coporation, at the insistence of its sales manager, Hoot Sasser.  He knows having a "Swiftwing Aero Girl" for the company will boost sales, and he's determined to play her up as the "Glamour Girl of the Air"!  Her first assignment, however, sends her to get a contract for the fuel company with Blackdart Airlines - run by a woman named Wanda Blackdart, who happens to hate Jenny.  Thus,she has to somehow prove herself in order to get that contract and keep her job - and that opportunity opens itself up when a mail plane goes down, putting the delivery behind schedule, which would be a black mark on Blackdart's record.  So, Jenny goes, grabs the mail, and gets it back in record time to save the company's record, much to the gratitude of Wanda's father, who owns the airline, and who immediately signs the contract with Swiftwing!

This leads directly into the second storyline, as the man who was competing for the contract is fired, and his position is given to a woman named Dolly Flash.  Dolly is determined to prove she is better than Jenny, so she challenges her to a cross-country race (can you see a pattern developing of strong female characters being threatened by Jenny's success?).  But both woman face problems when the man Dolly replaced suddenly throws himself into the race with the goal of showing up both of them.   Jenny has a pretty good lead, until she sees a smoke signal and lands to discovery a downed pilot who is injured and needs help.  Despite knowing it will lose her the race, she aids the man, getting him back to the final landing place well after Dolly has arrived.  But news of Jenny's rescue travels fast, and she soon becomes the object of the news reporters, who see her as a hero.  

Unfortunately, the head manager at Swiftwing doesn't see it that way, as he fires Jenny for not winning the race - only to rehire her shortly thereafter, when it turns out the man she rescued is the son of Swiftwing's biggest shareholder!  This takes readers into the third storyline, in which Jenny is sent to a boat service between Shark Island and the mainland to discover why their planes are having trouble after using Swiftwing gas.  This turns out to be the most interesting - and dangerous! - stories thus far.  Jenny discovers there is sabotage, but her nosing around puts her in the crosshairs of the saboteurs, who end up kidnapping her and are prepared to kill her - when one of the saboteurs discovers the other is actually a member of the Fifth Column Legion!  "I'm a crook but I ain't lost my patriotism! He can't pick on my country!" the man says about his co-kidnapper.  Thus, Jenny gets aid from an unexpected source, and she ultimately brings both criminals to justice and saves Swiftwing's contract with the boat service at the same time,

It's a thoroughly enjoyable strip, and quite frankly, the character would have made a great children's series book protagonist, similar I suppose to Ruth Darrow, Airplane Girl, Linda Carlton, Dorothy Dixon, or the Girl Flyers.

RATING:  10 samples of sugar-filled gas out of 10 for a high-flying adventure strip with a plucky female flyer who should never fade into obscurity!

Birthstone Gothic #12 - The Turquoise Talisman

You might notice that this is book 12 of a series of gothic novels in the "Birthstone Gothic" series published back in the mid-1970s by Ballantine books, and you may be wondering what happened to books 1 through 11.  Normally, I would never read a series of books out of order, particularly when they are specifically numbered.  However, in this instance, even though I do not have all twelve books in the series, I decided to go ahead and read this last book for two specific reasons:  (1) the books are not connected in any other way than the fact that each book centers around one of the twelve birthstones, and (2) the author is Sharon Wagner.  What's so important about Sharon Wagner, you may ask?  Well, it just so happens that not only did Ms. Wagner write gothic novels during their heyday in the '60s and '70s, but she also write four of the Nancy Drew books published by Simon & Schuster under the Wanderer imprint in the early 1980s (62 - The Kachina Doll Mystery, 68 - The Elusive Heiress, 70 - The Broken Anchor, and 76 - The Eskimo's Secret).  Thus, having enjoyed those four Nancy Drew books back in the day, I definitely had high expectations for this book.

The Turquoise Talisman was published in December 1975 and is based upon the traditional December birthstone, turquoise.  The story centers around nineteen-year old Juliann Fairchild, whose mother and stepfather have died in an unexpected accident, leaving the young woman with nowhere to turn.  Her half-brothers and half-sister are being taken in by her stepfather's family who want nothing to do with her and her half-Indian heritage.  Juliann's world is turned even more upside-down when the family attorney reveals her biological father is still alive and wants her to move to Arizona to live with him!  Juliann has no knowledge of her father, as her mother has never spoke about him and has never answered any questions about him, so she is surprised to learn he is alive and wants to meet her.  With no money to continue her college education, she decides to go out to Arizona and meet this man she has never known.  And, as we all know in any good gothic story, there's going to be some dark drama to come...

Wagner introduces the mystery elements to the story from the moment Juliann arrives in Arizona.  She is met by two ranch hands, Bentley "Ben" Welsh and Anson Verner, who inform her that her father has left on an undisclosed errand and he asked them to pick her up.  At the ranch, she meets Mrs. Peters, the cook, and her husband, Dean Peters, who has been assisting Juliann's father, Steen Deerman, with the horses and other ranch matters.  Before long, she is also introduced to Rex Hodges and Chuck Meecham, two more ranch hands.  And once we meet the cast, Wagner throws more mysteries our way - first, a silver box with a turquoise designed like a deer on the lid disappears from Juliann's room (a box that she was given by her aunt just before she left for Arizona), and second, her father's most prize stallion has disappeared, and no one knows what could have happened.  Which is made more odd by the fact that no one but Juliann's father was able to handle War Blanket (the horse), so if someone had made off with him, they would have had a very difficult time!

As the story progresses, the reader realizes right along with Juliann that not everyone in the household can be trusted.  While several of the young men seem to be vying for Juliann's attention, it's clear that someone in the house is not who they appear to be.  Before too long, Chuck meets with an untimely accident and taken to the hospital, unconscious and unable to tell anyone what happened.  Then Mr. Peters is run off the road, nearly injuring him.  And Juliann begins to have visions, seeing a strange Kachina doll that seems to be calling to her ... leading her ... and when a ransom note is received, demanding more money than anyone has the ability to pull together, that's when Mrs. Peters reveals the secret that Juliann's father has a special stash of turquoise and silver jewelry and other items he has made that would be worth a small fortune - but she doesn't know where he hid them.  As the Kachina spirits lead Juliann closer and closer to the truth, she finds her life in more and more danger - until the true evil reveals itself, and Juliann must trust her instincts if she wants to find her father, save her own life, and restore her father's treasure!

While I would not necessarily label this a gothic, per se, I would definitely say it is a great read and a fantastic mystery.  I can see why the Stratemeyer Syndicate had no issues with Wagner writing some of the Nancy Drew mystery stories.  The one drawback on this book was the fact it was written in first person, a point-of-view that I'm not really fond of when reading books.  That being said, I quickly got used to it, and after the first couple of chapters, I was not longer paying attention to that because I was so caught up in the story.

After finishing this book, I immediately picked up the first Nancy Drew that Wagner wrote - no. 62, The Kachina Doll Mystery.  Obviously, I was curious, since both books are set in Arizona, and both books feature Kachina dolls as a part of the story.  Thus, I wondered if Wagner took any elements of her gothic tale (published in 1975) and used them in her Nancy Drew mystery (published six years later in 1981).  While the basic plot was different, there were definitely similarities in the books:

Turquoise Talisman (TT):  Juliann's parents die, and she moves to Arizona to live with her father

Kachina Doll (KD): Heather McGuire's parents die, and she moves to Arizona with her brother to take over their ranch (p. 8)

TT:  the ranch owned by Juliann's father is near the Superstition Mountains

KD: the ranch owned by Heather's parents is near the Superstition Mountains (p. 23)

TT:  Mr. Peters is run off the road by a speeding car

KD: Nancy and her friends are run off the road by a speeding car (p. 25)

TT:  a pool is built in the middle of a lovely garden placed directly behind the main house

KD: a pool is built in the middle of a lovely garden placed directly behind the main house (p. 31)

TT:  an Appaloosa filly is missing from the stables

KD: an Appaloosa filly is believed to have been stolen by the cook's young nephew (p. 33)

TT:  the living room has furniture "arranged in several groups, making it clear that one corner could be used for private conversations while another was for watching TV or different conversations" (p. 25)

KD:  the living room  was "filled with sofas and chairs grouped for conversation or, in one corner, around a television set" (p. 36)

TT:  Juliann sees a Kachina spirit and follows it

KD: Nancy sees a Kachina spirit and follows it (p. 48)

TT:  Juliann rides a horse named "Dainty Dancer"

KD: Nancy rides a "bright chestnut mare Dancer" (p. 66)

TT:  Juliann has to help a young horse who gets tangled in barbed wire and injures its legs

KD: the horse Nancy is riding injures its legs sliding down into awash (p. 74)

TT:  a box is discovered behind some bricks around the fireplace

KD: a box is discovered behind a loose brick in the hallway wall (p. 80)

TT:  in Juliann's dream, the Kachinas formed a circle and seemed to call out to her

KD: in Nancy's dream, the Kachinas "circled and reached out to her in pleading ways" (p. 87)

TT:  Juliann's silver and turquoise box is stolen from the bedside table in her room

KD: the journal Nancy found is stolen from the bedside table in her room (p. 97)

TT: the box that Julianna finds behind the fireplace stone contains Kachina dolls

KD: the box Nancy and her friends find buried outside contains Kachina dolls (p. 182)

As you can see, there are way too many similarities for it to be a simple coincidence; clearly, Wagner used a lot of story elements from her earlier gothic tale to weave this mystery for Nancy Drew to solve.  And this does not even take into account the amount of silver and turquoise jewelry that play an important part in both stories.  That is not to say The Kachina Doll Mystery was not a good read, as it was.  But it is evident that Wagner simply retooled The Turquoise Talisman into a new story to write the Nancy Drew mystery.  It is even one of the few, if not only, Nancy Drew book to ever have a real ghost that is not explained away by the end!

Now that I've finished this last novel in the series, I'm more curious that before to track down the rest of the Birthstone Gothic novels and see what kind of tales other authors turn out for the series.

RATING:  9 chains of carved turquoise and worked silver beads out of 10 for a fantastically crafted mystery, with just a hint of gothic elements to make it more suspenseful!

Snoops, Inc. # 2 - Science Fair Sabotage

It's been more than a few months since I read the first book in this series, but I do remember finding the first book to be rather cute.  Thus, when I picked up this second in the series, I was expecting to find the same level of enjoyment, and I did.  This is a fun little series about four middle school children who have formed a mystery-solving squad they call "Snoops, Inc."  While the books are relatively short, with tons of internal illustrations, the stories are actually well-plotted, and readers have the opportunity to pick up on clues right along with the Snoops to try and solve the case before they do.  I know as a young reader, I would have thoroughly enjoyed these books.

Science Fair Sabotage is set at a school science fair (obviously), when twin sixth-graders Hayden and Jaden Williams have projects they are hoping will win.  Jaden has the cliched volcano, set with a timer that will cause the "lava" to erupt; while Hayden has developed an app that she hopes will be able to scan fingerprints just like the computers police use.  Their friends, and fellow snoopers, seventh-grader Keisha Turner and eighth-grader Carlos Diaz, are there to support them.  But after they and their fellow classmates set up their projects the night before, they come in the next day to discover their projects have been sabotaged!  Jaden's volcano erupts well before the start of the science fair; the microchip that stores the app on Hayden's computer is missing; a girl's backpack that has the blueprints for her project has gone missing; and a boy's robot has had the hard drive removed from its back.  Four projects damaged, while the project of another young boy named Tariq - who has no problem boasting about how his project will win the fair - was left alone.  Needless to say, all signs point to Tariq ... or do they?

Jaden, Hayden, Keisha, and Carlos are on the case, looking for clues, determined to get to the bottom of the science fair sabotage.  A miscolored footprint near Jaden's volcano; the girl's blueprints found under a table, but without her backpack; some small rubber bands near the boy's damaged robot; and a mysterious hooded figure running out of the school carrying a suspiciously familiar-looking backpack lead the four kids on a chase to catch the saboteur.  With only 104 pages and larger than typical font, the story moves very fast, and it isn't long before the culprit is revealed and the reason for his (or her!) actions are brought to light.

 

One element about the story that I thought was well done was Jaden's insecurity about not only his science project, but about his place on the team.  Hayden is the computer genius, Carlos is the face of the team, and Keisha is the brawn - so where does that leave him?  He has doubts throughout the story, but by the end, he does come to the realization that he does have a very important place on the team, and his contribution is just as important as the others.  A nice moral for young readers to remember that they do not have to have the same skills and qualities as others to still be important!

As I was reading the story, it dawned on me how similar this series is to the Zebra Mystery Puzzlers that I read as a kid (and am now re-reading as an adult).  The cover illustration, as well as the interior ones, have clues to the identity of the saboteur, and the clues in the story itself are pretty straightforward.  While the Zebra Mystery Puzzlers are not as easily discernible (after all, that series is written for adults, not middle-schoolers), the clues are there if you know how to spot them.  And I have no doubt that middle-school children who love to read will enjoy trying to spot them in the story and illustrations.

This is most certainly a series I would recommend for those with young readers (and even for adults if you have an hour to kill and want a quick, easy read!).

RATING:  8 Burger BOOM! Double Bacon Cheeseburgers out of 10 for keeping it short and sweet, but thoroughly enjoyable.

A Zebra Mystery Puzzler #1 - You'll Die When You Hear This

I can remember as a kid (I would have been around 9 years old at the time) seeing a display in my local bookstore (Waldenbooks, if I recall correctly) about this new series of mysteries aimed at adults.  They were called the "Zebra Mystery Puzzlers," and they were advertised as "The novel that lets you be the detective!"  The cover to each book had the tagline: "Can You Solve the Crime? By finding the clues in the setory, on the cover, and in the illustrations - before you cut open the final, sealed chapter?"  Yes, that's right.  Even though these mysteries were aimed at adults, they had internal illustrations, and the last chapter was actually sealed - you would have to take scissors or a knife to cut it open!  Even though I was only nine, I was already reading Nancy Drew and other series books, and it did not take much for me to convince my mom to buy me the first book.  I was instantly hooked!  In fact, one of my mom's friends who lived down the street from us was also an avid reader, and she picked up this series as well, and I can remember when she came down to visit with my mom, she and I would compare notes (we would read the same books, so that we could see if we could solve the mystery before opening that final chapter!).  Nine times out of ten, she was able to figure it out, while I wasn't.  So, as an adult, I've managed to hunt down and buy back all 60 books in this series, and when I picked this up to start reading the series again, I had to wonder if I would have any better luck figuring out who the killer was than I did when I was young...

You'll Die When You Hear This is not only the first book in this series, but it is also the first of seven mysteries written by Marjorie J. Grove featuring her amateur sleuth, Maxine "Max" Reynolds. Max is a gossip columnist for TeleFilm, described as "the most important trade paper in Hollywood" (p. 6).  And not just any gossip columnist either; no, Max is one of the most sought-after columnists by Hollywood's elite - actors, directors, producers, publicists, and just about everyone else connected with film and television wants her to write them up in her column.  Because of this, she lives quite the lavish life in the land where dreams are made (and dashed!).  She's even got a handsome beau, Rob Allan, with whom she could see herself settling down one day.  The red-haired young woman is living the perfect life.  Until she gets into her car after a meeting with a talent agent to discover a cassette tape with a very unusual message - one that forewarns her of the death of a script writer and instructs her to write up his impending death in the next morning's column, or it will result in more deaths - and it will be her fault!

Talk about a unique way to open a murder mystery!  This kind of opening definitely grabbed my attention, which is actually a good thing, because the actual murder does not take place nearly half way through the book at page 115!  Grove spends a good portion of the first half of the mystery introducing readers to Max and her life in Hollywood, as well as the various members of the supporting cast (many of whom turn out to be suspects or possible murder victims).  Grove goes into great detail in describing the routes Max takes to get from one place to the next - the streets that she drives down, the various businesses she passes and what they mean to the Hollywood jet-set, and the time and distance between locations.  She also provides readers with considerable amounts of backstory to the characters, brought on with each meeting that Max has with them during the course of her day (and investigation).  Once Max actually comes across the body floating in the pool, her mind instinctively turns from gossip columnist to investigative journalist for two reasons - one, she does not think the police will actually figure out the identity of the killer because they don't really understand the Hollywood life, and two, if Max were to catch the killer, it would make such great headlines, she might actually get her own talk show!  Yeah, so there's a bit of self-serving in her desire to catch a killer, but at the end of the day, if a killer is put behind bars, does it really matter why she set out to solve the crime?

Max is a very likable character, and I thoroughly enjoyed her assistant, Pamela Tooth (affectionately called "Toothie" by Max).  The two have a great, natural rapport, and the way Grove writes them is not only believable, but truly run to read.  The overbearing cop who is investigating the murder is a bit on the stereotypical side, but it works for the story.  I will say this, however; while the cover blurb says to look for clues on the cover and internal illustrations, as well as the story, I found most of the clues to actually be in the story.  I only saw one actual clue in the internal illustrations, and the clue on the cover is kind of iffy in my opinion.  But that's okay, because I still enjoyed the story, I still thrilled at the huge climax when Max puts all the clues together and realizes who the killer is, and I was at the edge of my seat waiting to see how Grove was going to get her out of the trouble she found herself in in that final chapter!

Oh, yes, and speaking of that final chapter.  Grove did not exactly wait until the final SEALED chapter to reveal the identity of the killer.  Instead, it is the next to the last chapter where Max has the revelation after hearing something that gives the killer away (and not just to her, but to the reader as well).  Which was a bit disappointing, because it took away from the suspense of that sealed chapter, since we knew the killer's identity, and the final chapter would only be the showdown between Max and the killer.  I suppose the final chapter also gives the readers a recap of all the clues that we should have picked out of the story and illustrations, but I was honestly hoping the identity would only be revealed after you cut open those final pages.  Oh, well, perhaps future books will offer that surprise.

 

From what I was able to discern online, the author "Marjorie J. Grove" is actually a pseudonym for Martin Grove.  I could not really find any other books written by Martin Grove, however, I did find a Martin A. Grove who appears to be columnist for The Hollywood Reporter, which leads me to wonder if this could be the same person, since the main character in Marjorie J. Grove's books is a gossip columnist in Hollywood.  Plus, I was able to find one book written by Martin A. Grove, published in 1988 and set in the television industry.  This would lead a reasonable person to believe there is a very strong likelihood that this Martin A. Grove is the same Martin Grove who wrote these Zebra Mystery Puzzlers under the female pseudonym.  Plus, there is that quick reference on page 11, when Max is musing over her Gucci handbag and thinks about her "writer friend Martin Grove [who] had once joked that he and his wife, Marjorie, had named their son, Geoffrey, just so that the Gucci double G emblem would be his honest-to-goodness monogram!"  A little self-plug there, perhaps?

In any event, I'd say this book was a pretty good start for the Zebra Mystery Puzzlers, and I am looking forward to working my way through the series.

RATING:  8 tall glasses of Campari with Perrier water out of 10 for a crafty little mystery with a spunky amateur detective to solve the crime!

Penny Parker Mystery Stories No. 13 - Guilt of the Brass Thieves

People always say that the number 13 is an unlucky number; however, for Mildred Wirt, number 13 is actually a pretty lucky number, as her thirteenth Penny Parker mystery actually got this series back on track after the oddity that was book 12 (Voice From the Cave).  With this book, readers get the Penny Parker and Anthony Parker that they loved so much in books 1 through 11.  Penny is perky, snarky, and downright plucky as she sets about to find the identity of the thieves who are stealing brass from an airplane factory owned by her father's friend, Mr. Gandiss!

Guilt of the Brass Thieves actually takes Penny and her father on yet another vacation (if you recall, they went on a vacation to a nearby beach in the last book!).  I'm guessing Penny must still be on summer break from school, since there is no mention of classes at all in this mystery.  Thus, I supposed it would not be entirely unrealistic for Mr. Parker to take his daughter on another vacation; although, it does beg the question - who is minding the Riverview Star while its owner and editor is away so much?  In any event, this story, like the several before it, features a war-related mystery as someone is stealing brass and copper from the Gandiss airplane factory, which is producing materials necessary for America's war effort.  In fact, Mr. Gandiss indicates that, at the rate the thieves are going, he could stand to lose upwards of $60,000 within one year (p. 29), which, if you stop and consider that this book was published in 1945, would equate to more than $1 million in revenue loss by today's standards!  That's quite a bit of money!  The blatant war references are not abundant, but there are subtle references, such as the fact Mr. Gandiss' factory is made up almost entirely of working girls (p. 30, p. 48), who would have stepped in to fill positions normally held by men when they were called away to fight in the war.

The story opens with Penny and her father waiting for Mr. Gandiss to pick them up in his boat to ferry them across to Shadow Island (p. 2), where he and his wife and son reside.  As it turns out, there is a real Shadow Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada, where it is also known as Prince Edward Island.  (This also happens to be the setting for the children's classic, Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery.)  Instead of Mr. Gandiss, however, the Parkers are picked up by his son, Jack, who they quickly learn is irresponsible and rather headstrong when the boat he is using to ferry the Parkers runs out of gas, and he has no anchor and no oars in it either (p. 7)!  As luck would have it (because what would any series book be without its protagonist always having good fortune?), a large riverboat, the River Queen, comes along and provides them passage.  It is here that Penny meets young Sally Barker, a dark-haired girl the same age as Penny (p. 9), whose father owns the ferry.  One must take note here that there was a real steamer called the River Queen that was used as a ferry back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, but which met its ultimate demise when a single lantern on the boat exploded, catching the boat on fire that ultimately engulfed the entire thing (and pay attention to those details, as they actually mirror some events that take place in this mystery...)

While on the steamer, Penny admires a brass lantern that she quickly learns was won by Sally the previous year in a sailboat race, in which she defeated Jack Gandiss (p. 16), for which he is bitter and determined to win it back in this year's race.  "Provided the lantern isn't stolen first," he warns Sally (p. 16), which, to any astute reader, is a clear case of foreshadowing.  When the Parkers finally make it to the Gandiss' home, they finally learn the real reason for their invitation.  "How are you two at solving mysteries?" Mr. Gandiss inquires of them (p. 27).  He proceeds to tell them of the thefts from his factory, and introduces them to two detectives - Jason Fellow and Stanley Williams (p. 28) - who are trying to find the thieves, but have been unsuccessful to date.  Penny and her father agree to help, and Mr. Parker even brings in a prominent detective from Riverview (pp. 72-73), who opens up a faux pawn shop in the hopes of drawing out the thieves who want to sell the brass and copper.  Penny, in the meantime, stumbles upon some clues of her own when she overhears a maintenance man and security guard talking about how "it worked slick as a whistle" (p. 65) after getting Sally fired from a position at the airplane factory where she was trying to earn money for college (p. 66).  This, of course, makes Penny more determined than ever to not only find the culprits, but to clear Sally's name.

There is quite a bit going on in this story.  Not only do we have the thefts at the factory, but there are also the midnight excursions of Jack Gandiss to a rather disreputable establishment owned by Ma Harper and her husband, Claude (p. 104), which Sally describes as the "meeting place of scum of the city" (p. 104).  The brass lantern is then stolen from the River Queen, and Sally feels responsible (p. 111).  Then, thanks to a twist of fate, a taxi ride takes Penny to the Harper residence, where Penny learns Ma Harper is engaged in the selling of black market silk stockings (pp. 138-44).  Penny finds herself in quite the pinch when the Harpers realize she is a snoop, and she spends several chapters trying to escape and evade them so she an report to the police that not only are they selling the illegal silk, but that they also have all of the stolen brass in their basement (p. 147)!   Now, we must stop here and talk about this basement for a moment...

When readers are first introduced to the Harpers' house, it is described as a two-story building "that appeared to stand on stilts over the water" (p. 119), as it was built right on the river side.  Yet, when Penny is inside the Harpers' house after being taken there by the taxi driver, she decides when left alone for a moment, togo down into the basement to see if the brass lantern is down there with the other brass that was stolen (p. 147).  Now, I have to ask - if a house is built on stilts so that it is raised over the water, now in the world could the house possibly have a basement?  By the time she reached this point in writing the story, had Wirt forgotten she described the house as being built on stilts?  Unless, perhaps, a small portion of the front of the house was actually built on solid ground, with only the back on stilts over the water, but even that would be questionable, as the ground so near the riverbank would surely not be sturdy enough to support a basement being built into it.  I suppose this is merely a moment where we need to suspend out disbelief and just move on with the story.

Penny eventually gets rescued by Sally and the River Queen (p. 173), and it is here that Wirt adds a very dramatic, dangerous scene involving an excursion boat that catches fire when the oil tanks explode, causing it to catch fire, threatening not only the lives of the passengers, but also the freight sheds along the shore, which could easily catch fire if any sparks jump from the boat (p. 179).  Sally's father uses some ingenuity to first catch a tow-line to the other boat and drag it away from the shore (p. 181), and after the tow-line breaks, by ramming the other boat repeatedly with the River Queen to force it further away from inhabited shoreline (p. 183).  Sadly, one man, an engineer, does die from the explosion on the other boat (p. 197), but Captain Barker, with Penny and Sally's help, manage to save the lives of everyone else.  

The Harpers and their cohorts are eventually all captured, and Sally does manage to recover the brass lantern, although at a very high cost to her own safety (pp. 194-97).  As a result, she asks Penny to man the sailboat for the upcoming race (p. 203), and not only does Penny win the race, but Captain Barker is awarded a gift of $1,000 for saving the lives of so many people from that excursion boat - a prize that, in today's money, would be approximately $17,000!  He informs Sally this would be the money to pay her way to college, to which she responds, "I only know I'm scheduled for the same place Penny selects! She's been my good luck star, and I'll set my future course by her!" (p. 210).  I believe this is the first time there is any mention of Penny attending college, and hints at the fact that she is at an age where she would be thinking of college, placing her possibly in her junior or senior year of high school.

Wirt uses a considerable number of sailing and nautical references throughout the book, once again affirming her love of the water and all sports related thereto.  In fact, Penny is even described in the story as an excellent swimmer and as someone who enjoys sailing and all water sports (p. 4).  Wirt makes reference to the centerboard of the sailboat (p. 45), the jib sail (p. 79), the tiller (p. 81), and the ultimate description of the sailboat race (p. 205), all of which are provided in detail with the assumption that the reader would be at least somewhat familiar with the terms (or, perhaps, that the reader would look them up and learn more about them as a result of reading the story - such as I did!).  Multiple times in the story, Wirt refers to the boats' inability to land near certain areas of the islands due to the existence of "shoals," which she does not specifically define.  Looking them up, I discovered that "shoals" are naturally formed ridges or bars that are just below the surface of the water and pose a danger to boats attempting to cross that particular area of water. 

One final thing I just have to make note of is the fact that the Gandiss' family has a made by the name of ... wait for it ... Effie!  One has to wonder if this is Wirt's way of poking fun at the Syndicate, since Effie was the substitute housekeeper for the Drews in Nancy Drew's Password to Larkspur Lane (1933, Walter Karig), but more recently in Nancy Drew's The Secret in the Old Attic (1944, Mildred Wirt).  Perhaps since Wirt had just used the character in a Nancy Drew book published one year prior, she used the name in this book as a quick jab at the Nancy Drew series she was writing for the Syndicate.

 

And before I sign off this post, I do want to mention the dedication at the beginning of the book.  On the page prior to the table of contents,  there is a short and simple dedication to Asa Wirt, who was Mildred Wirt's husband at the time this book was written.  At first, I wondered if the dedication was a result of Asa's passing, but upon a bit of research, I learned Asa Wirt did not pass away until 1947, two years after this book was published.  However, he did have a stroke in 1940, and suffered several more thereafter, until he was forced to leave his position with the Associated Press in 1943.  After this, Mildred Wirt took on a job at the Toledo Times in 1944, meaning she was working and taking care of a sick husband at the time this book was written.  This, perhaps is part of the reason why Wirt only had two books published in 1945 - this book and the Nancy Drew title, The Clue in the Crumbling Wall. 

Overall, this book was a far cry better than the previous one, and it definitely re-establishes the character of Penny Parker that Wirt had created and been writing for the previous six years.  I was glad to see her back on track, and it gives me high hopes for the remaining four books in the series.

 

RATING:  9 small couplings of brass out of 10 for another well-written, exciting mystery that proves just how great Penny Parker is as a series detective!

Janet Hardy in Hollywood - Book One of the Janet Hardy Series

I've had the second book in this series for quite a while, but it was some time before I finally picked up the first book (I was looking for one reasonably priced in a pretty good dust jacket).  I managed to find a great copy at an estate sale last year, so I bought it and am finally just getting around to reading it.  Now, I will admit that prior to picking up this series, I had never heard of Janet Hardy.  I knew that Whitman did quite a few "Authorized Editions" based on various actors and actresses from Hollywood, and based on the two titles in this series, I though perhaps Goldsmith had jumped on the bandwagon.  This, clearly, was not the case.  There was no actress named Janet Hardy back in the early 20th Century, although I did find a book by famed author Nora Roberts, in which the main character has a grandmother in the book named Janet Hardy who was a legendary actress.  Makes one wonder if Nora Roberts perhaps read these two books... (I should note there were two actresses named Janet Hardy who did films in 1971 and 1981, respectively, but those were obviously well after this book, so it could not have been based on either of them!)

Janet Hardy in Hollywood is the first of this two book series written by Ruthe S. Wheeler, the same author who wrote another book from Goldsmith that I reviewed a while ago (Helen in the Editor's Chair).  Although, from what I have learned since reading that book, apparently Ruthe S. Wheeler was actually author Graham M. Dean, who wrote these books for Goldsmith under his wife's maiden name.  I suppose at the time, it did not seem appropriate to have male author's names attached to series books intended to be read by girls,  In today's world, that would not matter in the least, but the 1930s were definitely a different time (in fact, stopping to think about it, that would be nearly 100 years ago - a century ago!).

The story centers around Janet Hardy and her best friend, Helen Thorne, two young ladies who are getting ready to graduate from high school in their mid-western town of Clarion (the state is not identified, but there is a Clarion, Iowa, which would fit the Midwest setting).  Helen's father is a successful film producer in Hollywood, and Helen is anxious for him to come home in time for her graduation.  In addition, Janet and Helen are auditioning for the lead parts in the senior play before graduation - and Helen wins her part but Janet ends up as a light technician and stage hand.  Of course, as fate would have it, when the opening night of the play arrives, the other lead actress is injured in a freak accident, and Janet has to step into the role at the last minute!  She and Helen do such a magnificent job, Helen's father decides to take the girls to Hollywood for the summer so they might have an opportunity to act in some western films his company is producing.

Despite the title, more than the first half of the book actually takes place in Clarion, with all of the events leading up to the girls taking their trip to Hollywood.  The girls face a pretty dangerous scenario when the bus taking the seniors to a skating rink for an evening gets caught in a horrific snow storm on the way home, trapping the students and their teacher in a blizzard with no heater and no help in sight!  Janet and Helen (along with the boys they like, Jim and Ed) manage to keep everyone safe and warm, and the bus driver eventually returns with help to get everyone back home for hot drinks and a roaring fire.  They also face some difficulties from the girls against whom they compete for the lead roles in the play, as the rumor is spread that Helen only got her part because of her father's fame in Hollywood, while another rumor begins that Janet caused the accident that injured the other girl so she could get her part!  No real mysteries involved in these events, but they do make for some enjoyable reading.

It's only after Janet and Helen arrive in Hollywood with Helen's father does the mystery begin. Janet and Helen audition and win small parts in a western film being made by Mr. Thorne's production company. From the get-go, it is pretty clear that the leading lady in the film is not overly fond of the girls, feeling they got the parts solely because of their connection to Mr. Thorne.  Sure enough, Janet has a mishap with a saddle she is using while riding a horse during the filming of a scene, and while recovering from the fall, she learns that someone purposefully cut through the saddle girth, so that it would slide loose during the ride!  Janet does not like to think someone would purposefully injure her, so she lets it go.  But when they are selected to be in another film, albeit small parts once again, they see firsthand how deep the sabotage goes - because it is not Janet the saboteur is after; rather, someone wants to ruin Mr. Thorne's production company!  A kidnapping, some aerial battles, some burning sets, and a deadly explosion threaten to close down the film - and Mr. Thorne's company! - if someone doesn't figure out who the saboteur is and fast!  (And I'll give you two guesses who cracks the case...)

Sadly, this book does not have any internal illustrations (I don't know why, exactly, but I really do love seeing internals - I guess having had them in the Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and Bobbsey Twins books I read while growing up has spoiled me!); however, it does have some beautiful art on the dust jacket, featuring the scene where Janet and Helen first arrive in Hollywood, where they are greeted with a horde of photographers as they step off the plane.  Interestingly enough, you even see "NBC" on one of the large microphones, which I'm surprised they were able to get away with using a national broadcasting company like that.  The book does not identify the artist, although next to Helen on the cover is the phrase, "Two Taylors" - I'm not sure if that is a signature of the artist or some other obscure reference.  I tried researching the question online, but came up empty-handed.  

One odd thing I did find while reading the story is that these people always seem to be up late, and they have no issue with eating meals at midnight or later.  What is odd about that is that they refer to these meals as "lunch."  I've always thought of lunch being the mid-day meal, usually around noon or so.  Looking online, I saw reference to a "midnight lunch" or "late night lunch" on a message board, referring to a term used in Canada to describe meals served in the middle of the night (for late night parties, wedding receptions, etc.).  Although, if I were awake at midnight, I probably would have no problem eating a "midnight lunch"!

Overall, this book was just as enjoyable to read as Helen in the Editor's Chair - not exactly heavy on the mystery side of things, but a well-written story that is nicely paced and easy to read and enjoy.

RATING:  8 heaping platters of celery, olives, and pickled onions out of 10 for a tale of two midwestern girls who make their dreams come true in Hollywood!

The Best of Jane Bond - a Collection of Mike Hubbard's Female Spy

Up until I bought this collected edition, the only two people I knew with the name "Jane Bond" were the managing partner at the law firm where I work and the series of parodies written by Mabel Maney (parodying James Bond).  So, imagine my surprise when I was paging through a recent Previews, looking at the comics coming out soon, and came across a book titled The Best of Jane Bond.  Needless to say my curiosity was awakened, and I wanted to know more.  Was this Jane Bond perhaps a lawyer, like my boss?  Or a spy, like the Maney character?  As it turns out, she is [was] a spy for a fictional organization known as Worldpol (which makes me think of a home appliance every time I read that name...).

The Best of Jane Bond collects five of the super spy's stories, which were originally published in the British periodicals for girls, Tina and Princess Tina back in the 1960s and early '70s.  Based upon information provided in the introduction to this book, as well as what I could find online, it seems Jane Bond appeared in the British title, Tina (February 25, 1967 through September 16, 1967), and then that title merged with Princess, forming the newly titled Princess Tina.  The Jane Bond strip ran in Princess Tina from September 23, 1967 through February 28, 1970, after which, the character made a few appearances in a Princess Tina Giftbook for Girls, a Princess Tina Annual, and a Tammy annual.  She appears to be one of the few strictly adventure stories in those publications, as they normally featured mystery stories, horror tales, and schoolgirl related stories.

Readers only get a very brief introduction to Jane Bond with her first strip, which appears to be the only three-page strip (all the remainder strips are only two pages in length).  The caption merely reads:

Meet Jane Bond, Secret Agent.  As cool as an early morning rose and as deadly as nightshade.  Born in the United States, educated in Italy, dresseed by Zior of Paris - and hated by every crook in the world.

With that caption, we get an image of a very beautiful Jane Bond holding binoculars, while behind her lay a collage of passports, cameras, cash, blueprints, operation files, wallets, and other sundry items that every good spy might need.  That first story opens at the Pasadena Grand Prix in Los Angeles, California, where the driver of Car 13 manages to barely avoid a crash and win the race!  Of course, that car happens to be driven by none other than Jane Bond, super-spy extraordinaire!  Receiving a message from Worldpol headquarters, she gets her next assignment - to locate the western world's greatest scientist, John Simm, and the formula he has been working on!  In this first 12-part story, Jane faces off against a number of hired assassins, a class of deadly female agents, and an oversized dog; but none of them can stop this determined young beauty, and by the end of the tale, she not only finds the missing scientist, but keeps the secret formula from falling into enemy hands.

The next assignment in this collection finds Jane battling wits with the notorious Theodore Leopold, a villain otherwise known as "The Lobster."  Worldpol has discovered Leopold is installing some "very odd equipment" in his house, and it's up to Jane to find out what it is and whether it poses a threat to the free world.  In this 13-chapter story, Jane is forced to deal with some extremely unusual circumstances, the strangest of which is fighting off a gigantic metal lobster being controlled by Leopold himself - all to stop him from releasing a deadly serum that would result in the starvation of millions of people around the world!  From this tale, readers leap right into the next adventure, which is much shorter with only 6-parts, as Jane joins a circus to track down and capture an escaped enemy spy known simply as Konrad.

Apparently, the publisher had determined that shorter stories would fare better, as the next adventure collected here is an 8-parter in which Jane travels to the freezing regions of the Arctic to stop a group of people blackmailing the world's governments or they will cause a complete meltdown of the icy region, creating massive flooding around the globe.  Jane attempts to infiltrate their ranks, but she is soon discovered and nearly left behind to die when the massive bomb is detonated! Of course, she wiggles her way out of certain doom and saves the day, as always.  From here we move on to her last tale collected in this book, a short 5-part adventure in which Jane finally gets the tropical getaway she's been wanting - only, her vacation takes a turn towards work when she finds she was tricked to going to the tropical island in order to help one of the richest men in the world by keeping his daughter safe.  Needless to say, the daughter is kidnapped, and Jane must do some quick work (in a bikini the whole time, nonetheless!) to save the girl and stop her captors from getting away.

Unfortunately, the publishers did not give credit to anyone involved with the strip during its run, so while it is known Mike Hubbard was the artist, the writer remains unknown to date.  Hubbard's art, though, is magnificent.  His use of detailed backgrounds, shadowing, and perfectly defined faces and expressions makes the strip a fantastic visual experience, nearly thematic in nature.  Since the stories are not lengthy (even the 13 and 12-part adventures do not feel that long), they move along at a quick page, with plenty of action to keep it going - and to keep Jane constantly moving!  In the early strips, only the first panel featured some grey washes of paint, with the remaining panels strictly line drawings.  Later (in the middle of "The Lobster" adventure), the magazine added some red tones to the first page of the story.  Finally, though, Hubbard was able to use his grey washed art for all of the panels in the strip, which gave the story a bit of a darker feel than the simple line drawn panels did.  I can't say I like any variation better than the others, as I think they all added something to the strip, although the red duo-tone pages would have been better had they done both pages with the red, instead of just one.

Overall, a fun read and, by far, this is my favorite "Jane Bond" of all the ones I know!  I'm glad Rebellion Publishing reprinted these tales, and maybe one day, they can reprint the rest!

RATING:  10 spring-loaded fur wraps out of 10 for female spy adventure in the tradition of Emma Peel and Black Widow, with fast-paced, full-filled, action packed stories that are well worth the read!

Summerhaven - a Zebra illustrated gothic

I did not even realize when I bought this book that it was illustrated - fancy that! I bought the book mainly because the cover was reminiscent of the original cover for Nancy Drew #75 - The Emerald-Eyed Cat Mystery, with the cat's eyes staring straight out ... the spooky mansion in the background ... the young woman in the foreground, her hand raised to her mouth ... there was enough similarity to intrigue me, so I picked it up.  It has taken me a number of years to finally get around to reading it, and I can honestly say, it was worth the wait.  While the story is a bit more mystery-focused and not so much ghost or supernatural related, it was still a pretty good read.

 

Summerhaven, written by Linda Masterson, was published in 1979 by the Kensington Publishing Corp. under the "Zebra Illustrated Gothic" banner.   The book has 15 internal illustrations, beautifully rendered in pencil drawings, which I find interesting, because most adult books do not have internal illustrations.  Although, around this same time, Zebra was also publishing a series of mystery novels under the banner, "A Zebra Mystery Puzzler," in which the last chapter was sealed, and readers had the opportunity to guess the identity of the killer by finding the clues in the story as well as clues in the cover art and in the internal illustrations throughout the book.  Thus, Kensington Publishing Corp. was obviously testing the waters to see if adult readers would enjoy the illustrations, since both their Zebra gothic and mystery lines had them. Speaking solely for myself, I love them!  I've always been a fan of internal illustrations, because for me, it adds something to the story.  But, let's look at the story itself, and then I'll discuss the art a bit later...

Tiffany Chaplin is the main character of the book, and as the story opens, this young writer finds herself arriving on Gull Island to join her new husband, Derek Chapin, as they move into his family's homestead, known as Summerhaven.  The first person she meets on the island turns out to be her new husband's brother, Jason, who also happens to live at Summerhaven.  Soon enough, readers meet Maggie, the Chapin's housekeeper and cook, as well as Teri Manchester, a vivacious young woman who grew up with Derek and Jason, living at the cottage on the Chapin's rather large estate.  And, of course, we quickly discover that Summerhaven has its own mysteries - Derek and Jason's grandfather was allegedly a rum runner who stashed a secret treasure somewhere within the halls of Summerhaven, but no one has ever been able to find it; Derek and Jason's parents died under mysterious circumstances when the two of them were still children, and they were raised by their grandfather, with Maggie's help; their grandmother had a mental illness, which could have been passed down to her descendants; and Derek's first wife also died more than a decade ago under somewhat questionable circumstances.  For Tiffany, a mystery writer, all of these questions lead her to begin looking into the Chapin family history ... and, as anyone who has ever read a gothic novel knows, that is definitely going to lead to some major trouble!

Tiffany gets tangled up (quite literally) in some dangerous situations - from nearly drowning when she finds herself wrapped up in a net under the water (a net that she drags to shore and mysteriously disappears afterwards...), to having a heavy barrel of wine come crashing down on her (luckily she ducks out of the way, but not before splinters from the shattered barrel cut open her arm...), to discovering a dead body under the dock leading to the boathouse (thus eliminating one of the suspects...), to being locked in an underground tunnel, where she quickly discovers she is not alone!  The story definitely has its suspenseful moments, but none of them supernatural; rather, the story focuses more on a realistic terror and a realistic mystery that has to be solved before Tiffany can find the security she hopes to discover in her new home.

At times, I felt like I was reading an adult Nancy Drew novel.  The foibles are there, the red herrings are there, and at one point, Tiffany even gets a blatant warning, telling her that if she knows what is good for her, she will leave Summerhaven at once!  How many times did Nancy Drew get warnings like that?  And, just like our favorite teen detective, Tiffany refuses to budge; if anything, the warning just bolsters her courage to uncover the truth of what's going on.  She suspects it might be her husband, who has been rather indifferent to her since coming to Summerhaven and who has been showing an inordinate amount of attention his childhood friend, Teri.  She suspects Teri may be wanting to get her out of the way, so she can have Derek all to herself.  She suspects Jason may have inherited some of his grandmother's mental illness, taking out on her the resentment he has over Derek inheriting the Chapin fortune.  She suspects Maggie may simply be too overprotective of "her boys," seeing Tiffany as a threat to their well being.  When she uncovers an old diary hidden away in a secret drawer of Grandfather Chapin's desk (gee, doesn't that sound like a Nancy Drew gimmick as well?), she hopes it will provide her with all the answers she needs to get to the bottom of this before she becomes the next victim of the curse that seems to be hovering over Summerhaven!

Now, as promised, let's discuss the art for this book.  Starting with the cover, I have to question why the publisher chose this image.  Tiffany is clearly described in the book as having short, curly dark hair - yet, the woman on the cover has flowing blond hair.  The foreboding house in the background is rather nondescript, so it could potentially represent Summerhaven.  But the cat's eyes glaring out from behind the woman - what in the world are they for?  There is not one cat in this story at all, so I'm at a complete loss to figure out the purpose of this cover art.  I'm aware that many publishers during this time period were slapping covers on books that often had no relation to the story inside, but I think this one goes a bit too far in that direction.  And what's even more odd is that this same cover was also used for another gothic novel titled Witch, by Barbara Michaels.  That book was published in 1977 (by Pan), and this one was published in 1979 (by Kensington / Zebra), meaning Witch used the cover first and this book is basically recycling that cover art.  Very interesting...

As far as the interior illustrations go, they truly are beautifully rendered pencil drawings (and, oh, how I love pencil sketches).  They allow for much more use of shading, allowing the artist to truly inject some moodiness and darkness into the illustrations. Some of the scenes are rather mundane (such as Tiffany and Jason riding bikes, or Tiffany looking at a book), but others are much more intense (such as Tiffany being grasped by someone from behind, or Tiffany screaming at something looming over her).  For me, the illustrations add a new level of enjoyment to the reading of the story.  Sadly, the book does not provide any credit for the illustrations (neither the interior art, nor the cover art), so I have no way of knowing who provided the art for the book.

That being said, I have to think the publisher did not give the artist the full details for the scenes to be drawn.  In a couple of instances, the illustrations are definitely not accurate portrayals of the scenes in the story.  For example, on page 45, Tiffany is looking at a painting of Grandfather Chapin, and it says "he was simply standing in front of a large roll top desk holding a book open in his hand..."  However, in the illustration on page 44, the man in the painting has no desk behind him, and the book he is holding is closed, being held up near his face.  Worse, though, is the scene on page 107, when Tiffany happens across Jason coming out of his bedroom in nothing but a towel (having just stepped out of the shower).  In the previous illustration, just two pages before, Tiffany is drawn with a dark blouse and a light colored jacket over it; yet, in the illustration on page 106, she is wearing a rather sexy, almost backless dress and Jason is fully dressed with a vest and tie!  I can only surmise that the artist was given minimal descriptions for the scenes, so they did not match up with the final published story.

Despite those discrepancies, I still thoroughly enjoyed the story, and I was relieved that Tiffany was not left to die in the underground tunnel.  The ultimate reveal was not what I would say a huge surprise, but the author did manage to keep me guessing until near the end.  And speaking of the author, just who is Linda Masterson?  I was able to locate an author named Linda Masterson who lives in Florida and has written non-fiction books about surviving a wildfire and living with bears, as well as some children's books based on the Precious Moments figurines.  Thus, I suspect this is not the same "Linda Masterson" that wrote Summerhaven.  Thus, I'm left to wonder if this is yet another one of the many pseudonyms used to write gothic novels of this era, and the real author remains a mystery to be solved...

RATING:  8 not-so-exciting games of pinochle out of 10 for a wonderfully suspenseful tale that provides a great mystery to read!