You know, the worst thing about this novel is its title. Nobody dies twice and the only way in which that could even be deemed possible really doesn't apply. Sure, it's catchy, but it's meaningless. By contrast, the back cover blurb on the Bantam paperback is catchy but meaningful, even if it blurs the truth behind its statements considerably. It's one of the best blurbs thus far. Even if I wasn't a hundred and some books into my monthly 'Doc Savage' runthrough, I'd want to read this one!

There's a great hook at the beginning too. Renny goes missing. For seven days. He even misses his scheduled appearance at the Park-Ritz—a venue so posh that the cheapest room is seven bucks a night!—, where he was to lecture on 'The Interdiffusion of Molybdenum by the Renwick Process'. I wouldn't want to sit through that but it's good to see the aides given real things to do pertaining to their day jobs. The gang searches for him, of course, but Doc is elsewhere once again working on the war effort, designing a plane locator gadget. Anyway, Renny returns of his own accord, but he appears to be thirty pounds lighter and he's scared stiff. He has no interest in sharing.

The only negative there is Dent's reliance on fear again. Damn, that's four books running! At least it's kept to a minimum here, with no new sonic weapon to instil terror into the minds of the public. It's just emphasis on what Renny's been through. And, after he visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art, locates a statue of a fifteenth-century Spaniard called Renaticus and systematically destroys it with a vengeance, Doc has Johnny and Long Tom bring him in to try truth serum. I get emphasis but this whole episode seems a little extreme. Who knew huge-fisted Renny was this fragile?

Anyway, we soon learn what went on. An inventor named Albert Jones, who reminds very much of Miguelito Quixote Loveless from 'The Wild Wild West' TV show, invites him to see a gadget that he came up with to extract dormant memories. It turns out that Renaticus, whose statue looks rather like Renny, was one of his ancestors, and the memory machine allows him to regress into ancestral memories rather like similarly fictional devices regress people into past lives. He effectively goes back to fifteenth-century Spain and experiences Renaticus's actions as if they were his.

And that's a problem for him, because Renaticus was a pretty awful dude. He was a member of the devil-worshipping sect known as Jurginas and even tried to murder Christopher Columbus, who's a nice guy, apparently. Given how badly that observation has dated, it's ironic to realise that Jones primarily sees his device as a means to validate history. Rather than trust in written evidence, we could find a descendant and have them experience what their ancestors did. He doesn't mention a problem with language and neither does Renny, who likely doesn't speak fifteenth-century Italian, but then this is a relatively simple action adventure novel, not deep speculative fiction.

And it is notably simple, especially in comparison to the densely plotted labyrinth a book earlier in 'The Laugh of Death'. This is much closer to the old school 'Doc Savage' novels than the series had got for quite a while, with some New York intrigue during the first half, then a complete location shift halfway to somewhere exotic for the second. Frankly, the most abiding mystery the book has is whether Secret Stevens—what a name!—is a good guy or a bad guy. We don't find that out until the final chapter and I won't spoil it.

I will tell you who he is though, because that's pivotal. Doc investigates Jones, of course, and ends up climbing into his memory machine of his own free will. The memory it trawls for him is from his father's life, which is great to see. Die-hard fans know that Clark Savage, Sr. dies at the start of the series in the very first book, 'The Man of Bronze', so I'm not going to complain about this overdue appearance. Doc experiences his father returning from the Valley of the Vanished in Hidalgo, only to tell Stevens, his long-term colleague, that he found nothing. Which is a lie, of course. He found a civilisation and cemented a supply of gold for his son to finance the life he intended for him.

And so Doc, being the moral pillar that he is, immediately tracks down Stevens to right this wrong. It's presented as a crime both on the back cover and in the text, but it's a wrong. Lying to a friend and colleague isn't illegal. And, through a short series of traps and betrayals, everyone heads off to Hidalgo to visit the Valley of the Vanished for the third time in the series. Not only did we spend time there in 'The Man of Bronze' to set everything up but we returned in 'The Golden Peril' some four and a half years later. At that rate, we might get a fourth visit in before all is said and done!

This is a special visit though and not just because there are others in the party beyond Doc and his aides, all five of whom appear here and are each given things to do. There's Jones, of course, and Stevens, but also the former's treacherous employee, Doyle Space and the men he hired to steal whatever Jones has going, and the latter's daughter, Annice Rogers, who eventually constitutes a very expected clash with Princess Monja. Of course she shows up, with her father, King Chaac and a whole bunch of others we've met before. However, they're not the only Mayans there and therein lies a whole subplot.

'They Died Twice' almost feels effortless after 'The Laugh of Death', which isn't a bad thing. Gone is the intricate plotting but in its place is a simple story that succeeds at the little it tries. Doc has work to do, of course, but so do his five aides, none of whom seem surplus to requirements even if the novel wouldn't feel lesser even if a few of them had been excised. The good guys are the good guys and the bad guys are the bad guys, without a lot of doubt as to where everyone fits, even if a first impression might be deceptive. The eventual ending is as karmic as tradition dictates, but is annoyingly quick for once, a disappointment to sit alongside the sidelining of Jones.

There's not much more to say about this one. It's a quick and easy read. It does what it does well. I liked it a lot and it's always good to revisit old friends. However, it doesn't really add much to our understanding of the series as a whole. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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