Flash Evans, Camera News Hawk (Flash Evans #2)

Alas, with the second book in the Flash Evans series, we come to the end of this short-lived series by famed Nancy Drew ghostwriter, Mildred Wirt Benson (writing under the pseudonym Frank Bell).  It's rather a shame this series did not last beyond these first two books, as the stories are quite exciting, fast-paced, and filled with both mystery and adventure.  Benson definitely pulled out all of the stops in this series, constantly putting her title character in some of the most dangerous (and outrageous!) situations; yet, like any good, plucky series book hero, he always manages to come out of each scrape pretty much unscathed.  Both books are great reads, and even for those who are not necessarily fans of boys' series books (like me!), the stories are very enjoyable, and I would definitely recommend them.

 

Flash Evans, Camera News Hawk is set nine months after the events in the first book, and Jimmy, or "Flash" as he is called by his fellow photographers, is now seventeen-years old. As seems to be his habit of being in the right place at the right time, Flash is invited by his fellow photographer, Joe Wells, to watch Bailey Brooks, a famed aviator and parachute jumper, test out a brand new parachute of his own design.  Joe now works for a newsreel company, filming the scenes rather than simply taking still photographs.  He and Flash snag images of the successful test of the parachute, but Flash grows uneasy when he sees Brooks talking with a man named Albert Povy, who Joe says is an unsavory character that has been suspected of being a spy.  With a scar running down the side of his face, he has the typical appearance of a series book villain!

 

Similar to the first book, this one has an overarching mystery (involving a government agent and a potential theft of important papers), while at the same time putting poor Flash through the ropes with one harrowing adventure after another.  The first is a horrific train wreck (how does Flash always manages to survive these disasters with barely a scratch?!?!), in which his friend Joe Wells is injured, placing Flash in a position to take his place as a cameraman to help out his rather contentious partner, George Doyle. Doyle and Flash take an instant disliking for each other, but to help his friend, Flash agrees to do the camera work.  Their first assignment is to video the Indianapolis auto race (which may have been a vague reference to the famous "Indianapolis 500," which began as far back as 1911), and while they arrive late and other film crews have all the prime spots, Flash's luck aids them out, as their not-so-great spot turns out to be the very place a horrible racing accident occurs, which they capture it all (p. 44)!

 

From there, Flash and Doyle just happen to be at the right spot when a bridge gives out, with a speeding car going down with it (pp. 100-01).  They catch it all on film, of course; however, the driver of the car is caught in the raging waters, so Flash risks his life to dive in and save the man.  As it turns out, the man is a wanted criminal, and when Flash gets him to shore, the police are there to arrest him - and to thank Flash for catching him before he could escape!  After that, Flash finds himself on the wrong end of an oar, and he is left by a villainous cretin (and I won't spoil the story by telling you who that is!) in a river that is surrounded on both sided by an out of control forest fire (pp. 136-39)!  As can be expected, he manages to swim under the water to avoid the intense heat of the fires and swim far enough downstream to get up on shore and get away - only to wind up kidnapped by the villain and held locked in an isolated house.  The poor kid just can't catch a break!

 

All of the stories tie into the aviator and his new type of parachute, and the government agent and the attempt to rob him during the train wreck.  It is one of Flash's photographs from the night of the train wreck, as well as his keen sense of observation and a fortunate find while locked up in that house that lead to the identity of the villain being revealed and his machinations put to an end.  And along the way, Doyle and Flash manage to earn one another's respect and let go of all the animosity between them.  But Flash is nothing but loyal, and despite both Joe and Doyle trying to convince him to join them on the newsreel crew, he sticks with his job at The Brandale Ledger.  However, he admits Doyle in the last paragraph of the book that "[t]aking ordinary pictures will seem pretty tame after this.  One of these days I'll probably be back" (p. 211).  Obviously, this was an open door for Benson to later have her photographer protagonist return to newsreel filming in a later adventure, had the series continued.

 

The cover art is the same as that on the first book - but after reading this, it becomes clear that the top and bottom of the four scenes are taken from this book, while the two scenes on either side of Flash's headshot in the middle were taken from the first.  I would be curious to know if this same cover art would have been continued to be used on future books, if more had been written and published.  The interior art depicts the scene of the car pile-up from the Indianapolis raceway.  With so many thrilling moments in the story, I am sure it was hard for the publisher to decide which scene to depict on the frontis piece!

 

And with that, we reach the end of this short-lived, two-book series.  One has to wonder if Benson had any other ideas for stories in this series, and whether it was her idea, or the publishers, to end it so quickly.  In any event, poor Jimmy "Flash" Evans was put on the series book shelf, a mostly forgotten character that only die-hard collectors seek out and read!

 

RATING:  9 nail files and rusty razor blades out of 10 for keeping the danger high, the mystery exciting, and the hero resourceful - all the great trappings for a fantastic read! 

 

 

 

The Mystery of the Tolling Bell - A Book By Any Other Name, No. 2

Way back in 1946, Grosset & Dunlap first published the twenty-third Nancy Drew mystery, titled The Mystery of the Tolling Bell.  About twenty years later, Christian Literature Crusade, with permission by Pickering & Inglis, Ltd., published a book written by Ellen Jane MacLeod by that same name (The Mystery of the Tolling Bell), which I happened across by pure chance at a local used bookstore.  Now, here we are a year later, and wonder of all wonders, I come across yet a THIRD title by that same name!  Now, I realize that some titles have a tendency to be used over and over (such as common phrases like "Double Indemnity" or "Web of Lies" or such); but for this unique of a title to be used not once, not twice, but three different times by three different authors in three different decades - well, the coincidence is uncanny!

 

This version of The Mystery of the Tolling Bell is written by Alan E. Losure, is an Indiana writer who enjoys writing historical fiction.  Unlike the previous two stories, Losure's tale is a murder mystery written for an adult audience, nor for children.  That does not mean it has sex, violence, and foul language; rather, it means the subject matter (murder!) is not something normally intended for children to read.  Additionally, while the two books for young adults were set in the present time (well, "present" as far as the date when they were originally published), this story is set back in 1898, just before the turn of the century.  Thus, there are no motor cars that would enable to characters to speed from one place to the next, and telephones are about the only technological advance - we're talking about "old west" style living, with saloons, general stores, and such.  However, as the title would suggest, the mystery does involve the mysterious tolling of a bell - in this case, warning the citizens of Gas City, Indiana that death is about to come to their small town!

 

Losure does write an interesting story that is multi-layered and not as clear-cut as one may expect.  In fact, the book is broken up into two parts - the first part being "The Mystery of the Tolling Bell" and the second part being "Doctor Death."  While the underlying mystery is threaded through both parts, they actually have very distinct factors driving the plots.  In the first half, the story centers around Herbert Ainsworth, a young man graduating from the local high school, who, at his graduation ceremony, announces to the townspeople how he has suffered at the hands of three other young men in his class for the past four years and warns them that their time is coming - theirs, as well as the school administrators who allowed the bullying to continue unchecked.  The second half of the book is focused on members of the mob who come to Gas City to begin an "insurance" racket, forcing the businesses to pay part of their profits for protection from ... well, protection from the very people to whom they are being forced to pay the insurance!

 

 "The Mystery of the Tolling Bell" is the mystery that asks - who tolls that school bell before each murder (or attempted murder)?  The bell is high up in a tower, behind locked doors, and no one is ever seen anywhere near the scene at the time.  Yet, each time that bell tolls thirteen times (made me think of the Penny Parker mystery, The Clock Strikes Thirteen), and each time, there is a murder, or an attempted murder, at least.  All clues point to poor Herbert, who threatened the other boys in his class, since the two who are murdered were two of the three boys who bullied him, and the one who was nearly burned to death in his own outhouse was the school superintendent. Herbert claims he is innocent, and it is not until the last remaining bully is caught trying to torch Herbert's small shack that the town realizes it was actually that third boy - or was it?

 

This is where "Doctor Death" begins.  With the third bully hauled out of town to face criminal charges at the county seat, the citizens of Gas City think the horrors have ended.  But then the bodies start to pile up again, each one with a note signed by "Doctor Death," warning of more to come!  While this is going on, some out-of-town mobsters have made their way into Gas City and have set up an "insurance" scheme to force businesses to pay for their protection - and when they find out about Herbert's amazing mathematical skills, they threaten him into helping them.  Ultimately, Herbert comes up with a plan to outwit the crooks, while, unbeknownst to him, the real killer has entered the wrong house to do his next killing.  As the story reaches its climax, some startling secrets are revealed (including the REAL reason behind all of those killings) and a statewide criminal organization is finally brought to its knees.

 

Losure writes a great mystery that is fast-paced, yet still has time to fully flesh out all of his characters so that the reader actually feels for each and every one of them.  In addition, Losure includes considerable photographs of people that he identifies as the characters from the story, as well as vintage photos of various sites from around Gas City during the 1890s. At the end of the book, Losure explains about his use of the Cabinet Cards to "enhance the story" by giving a physical face to each of his main characters.  As far as the use of the tolling bell, this was likely taken from the old expression that "when a bell tolls, someone is going to die," which expression is said to be rooted in the tradition of churches ringing bells to announce that someone has passed away.

 

Overall, a pretty good read, even though there were a number of spelling errors and mixed up names (at one point, Herbert is sent to the telephone company to review the books and try to correct the payroll ledgers - when he enters the building, the story says "Wilbert assured them that it was his top priority" [p. 234], when it was actually Herbert who assured them), leaving me to wonder if any editing was done before the book was published.  I enjoyed the revelation as to the killer's identity and motive, and the pictures scattered throughout the book DID enhance my reading of the story.  At the end, Losure breaks the fourth wall to ask the reader "what will the future hold in store for them and a few other characters?" to which he informs the reader that such "answers will be contained within the pages of my next book" (p. 238).  Those two lines gave me a nostalgic feel of the old children's mysteries from the '30s, '40s, and '50s when each book would give a small tag at the end, letting readers know what the next book would be.

 

RATING:  9 helpings of salted meats, breads, and pickles out of 10 for a great mix of history and fiction with the superbly plotted murder mystery at its heart!

So Cold the River - a supernatural thriller

This book came as a complete surprise to me.  It was given to me by a friend who lives in French Lick, Indiana.  At first, I turned down the offer, but she insisted, indicating the book was set in her home town, and she even drove me to see the hotel where a portion of the book takes place.  I conceded and brought the book home.  I put it up on my "to be read" shelf with the intention of never pulling it down to read.  It just is not the type of book I normally read.  Recently, though, I was trying to decide what book to read next, and I saw this massive hardcover sitting there, overpowering all of the paperback novels around it, and so I figured, "What the heck.  I'll take it down, read a couple of chapters, and tell Dina that at least I gave it a shot."  So, I opened up this 503-page story and sat down to read it.  Three days later, I finished it!

So Cold the River, written by Michael Koryta, is the story of Eric Shaw, a cinematographer with a failed Hollywood career, a failing marriage, and a dead-end job video-taping weddings and putting together video-taped collages for funerals.  An assignment to put together a video for a recently deceased woman finds him focusing on a photograph of an A-frame cottage painted deep burgundy.  No people in the photo, but something about it draws Eric, forcing him to include it in the shot film of this woman's family and children.  It seems innocuous enough; but after the wedding, he learns the photo holds some important secrets that only the deceased woman's sister knows.  A woman who then hires Eric for a job - to head out to French Lick / West Baden, Indiana to research her father-in-law's life to produce a video about his childhood and history as a gift to her husband.  You see, her father-in-law is on his death bed, and no one - not even his own children - know anything about his life.  Eric declines until the woman offers him literally thousands of dollars to do the work.  So, Eric packs up and heads to Indiana, having no idea what is in store for him there!

If you are thinking that this does not sound overly exciting at this point, guess again.  That feeling Eric has about the A-frame in the photo - well, that is more than just a feeling.  And that bottle of spring water the woman gives him - the only thing her father-in-law has from his past in Indiana - it holds some very dark secrets.  Secrets that Eric begins to learn when he takes a sip from the bottle that has been closed for more than fifty years.  And then takes another sip.  And another.  It becomes an addiction, because the more he drinks, the more he begins to see things.  Glimpses of the past.  Glimpses of Campbell Bradford, the man he was sent to research.  Glimpses of the evil surrounding this man.  It becomes clear pretty quickly this is more than just a regular thriller.  There is a supernatural side to the story that turns dark really quick.  And a book that I had no intention of reading suddenly drew me in just as quickly as that bottle of water and the secret history of West Baden / French Lick draws in Eric.  

The characters in the story are superbly fleshed out, and as a reader, you find yourself drawn to each of them.  There's Kellen, the young college student working on a thesis about his grandfather's life running a speakeasy back in the day.  And his grandfather had told him some unbelievable stories about the town and about Bradford - stories that he begins to realize may not have been the imaginations of an elderly man.  There's Annie, the old woman who has been around long enough to know pretty much everyone in the town - and who has her own stockpile of bottled spring water from back in the day that has its own secrets to tell.  There's Josiah, the descendant of Campbell Bradford who is always getting into trouble - and who might very well be Campbell's path back to the real world.  There's Danny, the dimwitted best friend of Josiah who has always been loyal to Josiah - and who begins to realize that loyalty may come with a price.  And there's Claire, the spurned wife who still loves her husband despite everything - and who comes to Indiana in hopes of saving him from himself, only to find she is the one who needs to be saved!

The book is a definite page-turner, with so much tension building and so much suspense, you won't be able to put it down.  I give Koryta credit - he writes a very powerful story that will keep even a non-interested reader like me on the edge of his seat, waiting to see what is going to happen next and how it will all turn out!

NOW - all of that being said, I will give you one warning.  If you are thinking about watching the film adaptation of this book that was released back in 2022, I've got one word for you.  DON'T!!!  Under no circumstances should you watch the film if you've read the book.  I don't know what the filmmakers were thinking, but the movie is so far removed from the book, all it will do is drive you crazy and make you wish you could get back that hour-and-a-half of time you wasted watching it.  I made the mistake of watching it on a streaming channel, and throughout the entire movie, I'm screaming, shaking my head in disgust, and complaining at how much destruction the filmmakers did to this amazing tale.  The characterization is WAY off, and the story is so butchered, it's almost unrecognizable.  So, if you are thinking about watching the film, again - DON'T!  You will regret it!

Stick with the book - it is a million times better and well worth the read!

RATING:  9 tubs of sulfur-smelling spring water out of 10 for a shockingly great thriller with some unexpected twists and backstories that will leave you breathless by the end!