Finally, Lester Dent returns to the series after five months away. Sadly, this wasn't one of his better books and it's notable more for a particular character than anything else. It's not awful but there's little else that makes it stand out at all and it's no real surprise to find it relegated in the Bantam reprints to being the opening story in Omnibus #7.

That particular character is effectively the Batman villain Two-Face, which shouldn't surprise either given how much the early superhero comics stole from the pulps. It's been a while since I've talked about how Clark Kent, the Man of Steel owes to Clark Savage, the Man of Bronze, as it extends for a long way beyond both having a Fortress of Solitude. Batman may owe more to the Shadow than Doc Savage but there are still memorable gadgets that originated in this series. And here, there's one of his standard rogues' gallery of villains plain as day, whose real name is Harvey Dent, a couple of years before his first appearance in 'Detective Comics', in a novel written by Lester Dent. No, that's not coincidental.

He's actually the first character we meet, entering an event at the Explorers League under a bogus set of press credentials. The doorman doesn't notice, possibly because it's a big day at the League, as Doc will shortly be given their Ten Year Medal, which is apparently "the highest honor the world of science and exploration is able to pay any man". The right hand side of this man's face is normal, showing that he's a handsome young man. However, on the other side of a sharply defined line that runs down the middle of his face, looks somewhat like a pre-Colombian South American mask, much darker with thick lips and Aboriginal features. He claims to have been burned by powder used in old flashlight photos.

What else we learn at this event is that "seven of our most valued and brilliant members" are not in attendance, on account of being lost in South America. Daniel Stage was the first of them, lost a year ago, but six others set out to find him, on separate expeditions, and became lost themselves. It's almost enough to think that they weren't particularly valued or brilliant, but it won't shock you to discover that something is afoot below the equator. Of course, they're the Men Vanished of the title and locating them, in the company of further explorers who want to find Stage, is the quest of the day.

The first of those is Phil O'Reilly, who really doesn't have the sort of name needed to be known as a great explorer. Elmo Walker Eagle, sure. Baron Edouard Corby, absolutely. Felix Point-Mackey, with no doubt. But Phil O'Reilly? No wonder he's suffering from imposter syndrome. He has money, quite the entry requirement in those days, and he has plenty of knowledge, but he hasn't really achieved anything yet, so he feels like a noob in accomplished company. When he goes to see Doc, Monk has little time for him, given that his greatest achievement thus far is to cross Africa in a Rolls-Royce, "complete with refrigerator and lace curtains".

So, how better for him to address that poor reputation than to whip on down to South America and locate not just Daniel Stage but also the six others who failed to do so, despite their superior experience and credibility. It doesn't hurt that Stage was his friend. It also doesn't hurt that he has just received a letter from Stage appealing from help, smuggled out by a trusted messenger. He's made a fantastic discovery, he says, but he was also captured and confined and he can't get away. He tried reaching the other six experienced explorers, who were similarly captured and confined, so help us, Obi Wan, you're our only hope.

Oh, and that trusted messenger is Kul and he can be found at his trading post, the location of which can be ascertained at Obidos, so take a wild stab as to whether this setup is a trap or not. You don't need to have read ninety-three Doc Savage novels before this one to figure that out. The questions behind it are who it's a trap for, whether Stage was in on it and whether there is anything fantastic hiding down there in South America, so there is still mystery here, even if the setup is transparent.

What's impressive is that everything I've covered thus far is set up by Dent in merely two chapters. Doc appears in the first to receive his medal, of course, but he also gets opportunity to shine, with a memorable scene in the park. He's been detoured by crooks, one of whom has a gun secreted in a shoulder holster. Doc grabs it, through his clothes, and rips it out so fast that the man is sent flying into the bushes. Monk appears in the second, alongside Ham, of course, and Johnny and Pat are in the room too. What's more, Pat is kidnapped by the end of that chapter, after a man turns over his chestnut stand to break a bottle of tear gas. There's a lot going on here!

There's plenty going on as chapter three kicks off with a chase, a new character called Dink Masket climbing onto the car Ham's driving. He's the one who rescues Pat, so he's immediately respected, even if Monk wants to fight him. There are brawls and exposition, background featuring characters we haven't met yet, even a little aside that Doc's moved his Fortress of Solitude, which has nothing to do with anything going on here but demonstrates how Dent was keeping an eye on the series as a whole as well as the current story.

We do meet those characters, like Chief John Eagle, oil-rich Native American father of Elmo Walker Eagle, who was lost searching for Daniel Stage. There's also Junith Stage, Daniel's sister, who's as beautiful as you might expect for the token women in the story. And there's her mysterious fiancé, Rollo Marbetti, who is clearly not up to any good but whose motivations are not immediately clear. That's more characters than many recent Doc Savage novels, so we do actually get the opportunity to figure out who's doing what and why, before Dent wraps everything up.

He does that rather quickly, which is a bit of a letdown, but in a decent context. The eventual reveal is capable too, with one neat detail that I can't mention because it's an outrageous spoiler, but also counts as something new within the series, I believe. The biggest problem that this book has is that it doesn't have a lot of things that could be considered something new, so it fails to stand out in the crowd of other Doc Savage novels. The biggest success it has is that it's set up very quickly and very capably and it moves along very smoothly. It's almost like Dent had his formula down by this point. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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