Review of Doc Savage: The Phantom Lagoon
Being that I’m a HUGE Doc Savage fan, stretching back to at
least 1968, when I realized that Will Murray had once again taken up the torch
and was writing new Doc Savage novels, I was overjoyed. Now this past year we have
seen three fantastic new ‘Wild Adventures of Doc Savage’ by Will Murray
(Writing as Kenneth Robeson). The most recent to be released is entitled ‘The
Phantom Lagoon’.
This was a great fast moving story wherein Doc and crew
(Monk, Ham and Long Tom, along with Doc’s adventurous cousin Pat begin a battle
in New York that stretched down to a mysterious island in the Caribbean
involving two women of dubious background, a mysterious Count, green gilled
mermen, and a secret plan by the enemy to cripple America before the start of
World War II.
As with previous Doc stories by Will we get plenty of
action, some cool gadgets, and lots of other great stuff to hold our attention
along the way. The best part about these new books is that they flawlessly read
like Doc Savage novels of old. This novel addressed one of the only problems I
had with the series up until now, and that was length. I found a few of the previous
volumes to be slightly too long. The original Doc stories as published by
Bantam were all only 140 or so pages in length. Some of the new Wild Adventures
were twice that. But this one seemed to be a bit shorter. If it was, that was a
move in the right direction, as the story seemed more compact and streamlined.
One of the best features of this newest novel was that Doc’s men were not
captured and used as bait against Doc, which has been done before. Yes, Pat was
captured and taken against her will, but I can accept that more than Monk and
Ham being constantly beaten up by thugs.
All in all this was a fantastic adventure and was great fun
to read. These Doc Savage books are definitely among my favorite series to read,
and I look forward to whatever new ones Will has on the drawing table.
Five stars and a great read. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
As always, my own novels are available at http://RLAngeloJr.com and http://tinyurl.com/RalphsAmazon
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