Last month, I mentioned in my review of 'The Magic Forest' that it would be the last book in the 'Doc Savage' series to be written by any hand other than Lester Dent's for over four years. That makes this one the first of those four years worth of pure Dent and he's already shifting things up, as if to say, this is my series and I can do with it what I will.

Most obviously, it doesn't feature Monk and Ham, who have been absolute mainstays of every novel thus far. Not only have they been in all of them, they've traditionally been the first of the five aides to appear and their bickering is a defining characteristic of most of the stories. Here, they're nowhere to be found, though we're eventually told that they're in Tierra del Fuego, the very southernmost part of South America, working for a whaling company, and there's a tie to them at the very end to lead into the next book, 'The Speaking Stone'. I believe they'll be back for that and every other adventure up until 'King Joe Cay', the first solo Doc, in another three years' time.

Eventually, of course, the surprise is that they're not in the book at all. Initially, it's that we see Johnny first, at least kinda-sorta. It's 102 degrees in the middle of the Pacific and a man is seen throwing snowballs at the crew of the 'City of Tulsa' from the crows nest at the top of its mast, a man who's very tall and very thin and has an Explorers ID tag in his stomach. He's also naked, found only with a three foot square of ficus cloth, of the sort used by "Brahmans" as clothes. It turns out to be Johnny and, while he moves around, he only speaks gibberish.

Doc isn't far behind, as we soon discover when he drops a message from a plane onto the deck of the ship letting them know he wants aboard. He parachutes down with Renny meaning that Long Tom remains behind to pilot the plane, at least until it's suckered down by fake flags and shot and set alight. Renny was shot too, as he descended, but there's an important note here about why he's the one who got to do so. With no Monk and Ham to bicker at each other, Dent has Renny and Long Tom decide who wins a particular decision by playing a word game:

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Finally Long Tom grumbled. "All right, you chiseler, I'll give you a whack at it. I'll make a word with you to see who goes."

"All right," Renny rumbled. "Y."

"Y-U," Long Tom said.

"Y-U-Z," said Renny.

Long Tom opened his mouth, closed it, scowled. "Look here, you big-fisted lug, Y-U-Z is not part of a word."

"You lose," said Renny promptly. "The word is yuzluk. It is a Turkish coin worth two and a half piasters."

Still grinning, Renny strapped on a parachute.

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Just in case the rules aren't clear, Dent even adds a footnote to explain them. Each player adds a letter until someone can't, at which point that person loses. Anyone can make a challenge at any time but, if they lose the challenge, they lose the game. Being a wordsmith myself, I loved this new addition and, while it's far more limited in application than Ham and Monk's constant back and forth, it's not remotely as tiring. Even with Ham and Monk back in the next book, I do hope that this new and very different back and forth between Renny and Long Tom will remain in place for future adventures. As long as they don't challenge Johnny, of course. That wouldn't be wise!

This game plays into the other departure for Dent, which is that he feels extra playful this time out. This isn't just found in the word game, it's also found in the word play that Dent puts to use as the writer and the banter between Hargrove, the captain of the 'City of Tulsa' and Weed, his first mate. It's all enjoyable conversation and it teases that both are harbouring secrets, to the degree that, while they're certainly the current occupants of these roles, they may well not be using their real names to do it.

The only reason that we don't suspect them of being the villains of the piece is that someone is cleverly leading the ship off course through the use of magnets. Oh, and because the captain is also a victim of a sort, being tormented by his parrot, Mabel. It used to live with his wife, which doesn't suggest any good reason why it should continue to call him by different names. This has to be the only use for this gimmick in the series, but again it ably and enjoyable fills the gap we would have otherwise felt more powerfully without Ham and Monk to bicker at each other.

The real villain appears to be a man named Lord London, but he has a habit of never appearing to be the same man twice. Nesta Reynolds, who's the beautiful young lady who inevitably joins the cast, having escaped from Jinx Island to the 'City of Tulsa' with Johnny, tells Doc about him. Doc mentions that he's encountered him twice before, but he was a different man each time, a different man, I should add, from the only trustworthy friend to whom Nesta introduces them who promptly also turns out to be Lord London, shooting a man dead in cold blood, albeit while trying to sucker Doc, whom he's just met, out of hiding, which suggests much.

And here's the other notable aspect of 'Pirate Isle'. While Dent is certainly playful in a variety of different ways, he's also willing to be tough and vicious. We're treated to that cold blooded murder, but also piracy and torture. The ship is taken over by force by vicious men and there's quite the sense of danger as they go about their business. No, we don't expect Doc to be found and killed, not least because there are another seventy books still to come in his series, but if one man is undeniably shot dead in front of us and a couple of others off screen, then so can a lot more and there are plenty of characters here who we wouldn't expect to see again in one of those seventy future books.

There are a host of other less obvious departures for the series. One is that we rarely leave the ship and not for long, arguably rendering this a rare story with one location. We certainly don't start in New York and we certainly don't travel a considerable distance for the second half. The use of gadgets is so minimal that I had to struggle to conjure up an example. There are indeed some instances where they're used, but none are remotely new to the series. There's also very little in the way of captivity, Johnny being taken into it from the crow’s nest and the whole ship being taken over surely counting as captivity, but nobody is kidnapped by anyone else and that somehow seems even more surprising than the paucity of gadgets.

It's certainly not the greatest 'Doc Savage' in the series, but I enjoyed this one a good deal and in large part because it was such a departure from Dent's established formula. Some things do work well, others less so—yet another instance of our heroes putting on blackface as a disguise—but there are precious few low points. It seems rather shocking that Renny not have any idea what plankton is and the eventual reveal of what's going on turns out to be highly similar to an earlier adventure, albeit in a thoroughly different location. There's even a decent explanation for those mysterious snowballs!

Next month, let's find out how well this segues into 'The Speaking Stone' and how annoying the pair of Ham and Monk will seem after a month off. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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