I've mentioned many times in my Doc Savage reviews that Kenneth Robeson was a house name used by Street & Smith. I've also mentioned that Lester Dent used that house name far more often than any other writer, so much so that he was responsible for almost three quarters of the 'Doc Savage' novels. And I've mentioned the other writers who stepped in here and there as they did so, from Harold A. Davis in June 1934 to, well, here, as this marks the last time a different writer would take on the mantle of Kenneth Robeson for the first time. It fell to Alan Hathway to write this one, his first of four novels in the series, and I'm now looking forward to the other three.

What struck me immediately was how well he set a scene. The descriptions from the very first page are a step-up on the norm for this series and they continue throughout the book. It's simply better prose than tended to be used to tell pulp stories like these. His dialogue isn't quite up to the same standard but it doesn't spoil the chilling effect of the first chapter, as Johnny Pinetree is slashed to death by the Devil's Tomahawks in a flash, all while surrounded by the drums of death beating under a brooding sky now punctuated by streaks of fiery lightning. Too many of these novels feature characters being scared senseless by events that we shrug off but I could buy into the sheer terror that these feel up there in the northern peninsula of Michigan.

All the action unfolds in the vicinity of the Deep Cut mill and mines, run by Pig-iron Heller until he's killed and then ostensibly by Iris Heller, his daughter, because he can't reach his adopted nephew Marquette Heller, who is half Ojibway. Of course, the threat from the Native Americans mean that people want to reach Doc Savage, but he's already on the case, because we recognise little Johnny, who had wandered into the north woods not a month earlier with a remarkable knowledge of hematite and been promptly hired by Pig-iron. One of those people is Mattson Kovisti, who flies to Detroit to meet with Renny at Long Tom's suggestion, only to fall prey to the Devil's Tomahawks right there on the street.

At this point, everything's still positive. Doc's away at the Fortress of Solitude, so his aides have to step up, an approach I wish had been taken more often. And when was the last time that we met Johnny, Renny and Long Tom before Monk and Ham? Had it ever happened before? It certainly should have done and it happens here. However, problems are starting to creep in. For one, while we don't know yet what the Devil's Tomahawks are, when we do eventually find out we'll immediately flash back to that scene in Detroit and say "Huh?" Also, Doc being away is fine, because we know he spends away time at the Fortress of Solitude but we also know that, as Long Tom pointed out to Kovisti, he can't be reached. Except, apparently, now he can.

That's not good and it's not the last example of Hathway slipping up on his 'Doc Savage' lore while writing this book. I have to wonder about who edited it and didn't catch these sort of mistakes either. My other problem is Hathway's reliance on some rather improbable gadgets. Sure, Doc is a genius as are his various aides, in their respective fields, but, while I didn't buy into Ham and Monk being killed when their canoe is bombed on Lake Superior, I also didn't buy into the reason why. Maybe I might buy into the contraption being stable enough to deal with some chemical rocket propulsion system that Monk has conjured up to make it go really fast, but to also turn it into a surprisingly spacious submarine with a built-in laboratory is a few steps too far.

What follows continues to be both positive and negative. It's always a well-described story, in vivid locations and with plenty of local colour. There's always much to praise, whether it's Monk showing off a few new skills, like being able to understand and speak Ojibway, remember the words to 'Hiawatha' when there's need to do so or saving the day in memorable fashion—the ventriloquist trick to make his pig, Habeas Corpus, speak is a literal lifesaver this time out—or the fact that the local Native Americans aren't simply a homogeneous mass but three distinctive groups with distinctive thinking, right down to the status of halfbreeds, and I don't just mean the Indians who are really Brooklynites in disguise. On many fronts, this is the best book in the series I've read in a while.

On the other hand, there's often much to cause disdain, most obviously the use of gadgetry, which Hathway is fond of overusing, albeit in a different way to Lawrence Donovan, who loved his superscience. Doc uses a new gas here that makes anyone who breathes it move in slow motion, which is rather far-fetched. Sure, it's highly visual in a 'Dick Tracy' serial sort of way but it's far from credible. Similarly I didn't buy into Doc being able to pull off so many amazing feats while there's a capsule stuck up his right nostril containing a powerful solvent that can be sneezed out and dripped onto metal handcuffs to melt them. There's a lot wrong with that logic.

The only innovative use of a gadget that worked for me was one that backfired, something that happens far too rarely in this series, given that there are so many ways that they could go horribly wrong. Just run a risk assessment on a capsule full of metal-dissolving solvent stuck up your nose for a start! Doc escapes one mass attack by hurling out globules that break when they hit something solid likes trees, creating a vibrant flame and smoke to cause a distraction, but there's a catch. Throw water on them, as may be natural if you think the forest around you is alight, and it becomes a far more dangerous substance. So, while he could have got away in this instance, Doc safely extinguishes what he started to keep the locals safe and is caught for his trouble. That's refreshing.

The question, of course, is whether all these highly positive aspects outweigh all these highly negative ones, and I'm not sure I can answer that. I thoroughly enjoyed this book but I rolled my eyes at it more than once. I think the deciding vote may come down to what we learn during the finalé. I won't spoil that, beyond it being a good way to answer our running concern about the Deep Cut mine failing because the quality of its iron ore fails to meet commercial grade but someone clearly cares about it so deeply that they'll go to extreme ends to acquire it. What I will say is that the reasoning ties to current affairs in January 1941, when this novel was published in 'Doc Savage Magazine'.

I've been looking at these novels carefully for a couple of years now to see when and how the various writers of this series will acknowledge that there's a World War going on. For the most part, they haven't, keeping a distance from it, one reason why this novel is set around Sault Ste. Marie rather than some exotic nation in a more exotic latitude. When they have, it's rarely factored into the actual plot, a couple of notable exceptions notwithstanding, one of which, 'The Flying Goblin' backfired horribly to eighty years of hindsight. However, in this one, Hathway actually pits Doc against enemy agents, even if it's at a level of abstraction. That's quite an approach for his first novel in the series. Let's see what he comes up in his other three entries over the next year. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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