The most obvious constant in 'Doc Savage' novels from 1943 thus far has been change, Lester Dent playing with his formula in little ways, presumably to keep the writing process fresh and maybe to see if something sticks. 'Mystery on Happy Bones' breaks that trend by continuing the majority of what he introduced in 'The Running Skeletons' the month before. The only obvious change is one back, as he restores the traditional bickering of Ham and Monk, our respite from that lasting just a single novel. Otherwise, this is another story without much of a plot but Doc showing his flaws in surprising ways and a prominent kick ass female character reacting well to that.

The former seems like sloppy writing. Given that Dent was responsible for the majority of the best 'Doc Savage' stories and he'd been writing them for over a decade, we know full well that he could plot with the best of them. However, for these two books, at least, he's far more interested in the moments of the story than its sweep. Doc doesn't make the mistakes here that he did in the prior novel, other than climbing through a window to be shot fourteen times by two men, one of whom promptly faints when he realises who he's apparently killed. However, he does show some honest to goodness imposter syndrome here and we're simply not used to a Doc who has cold sweats and nervous perspiration, if there's a difference between the two.

The positive change is that female character, because the series really isn't known for them, but, after the wonderfully capable Willie Stevens in 'The Running Skeletons', he brings us not one but two of them in 'Mystery on Happy Bones'. They're sisters, Theodora and Willia Hannah, with the former a private detective in Washington, DC who technically doesn't appear but is presumably a capable young lady. The T. Hannah who memorably clocks Monk with a stocking full of sand is her sister Willia borrowing her identity for a while. Once she meets Doc, she reverts to her real self.

In fact, she doesn't even start out as T. Hannah but Neddie Wooster of the Winged Foot Delivery Service, bringing a highly unusual package to headquarters on the very first page. It's a cubic box about a foot along each side with a hundred feet of steel wire wrapped around it. Doc isn't there at the time, so he delivers it to Monk and Ham before vanishing. Monk is suspicious so he follows, only for the tables to be turned on him neatly with that makeshift slugger. We learn here that he always dreams of a green waterfall when he's knocked out. That does seem to happen a lot.

Doc examines the box, of course, and discovers that the wire is magnetised. It's a message from a Major Sam Lowell, U.S. Army. He needs help and wants to meet to discuss it, on a bugeye, which is a traditional Chesapeake Bay oyster boat. I could have sworn that we've spent time on a bugeye in a previous adventure but, if we did, I can't find a reference to it. Anyway, it's a trap, of course, as Willia believes that Doc is orchestrating something against her with Major Lowell, which is quite the shock to him because he isn't. He bests her physically but she hurts him in the process: "Never in his life had he felt quite so much pain from onespot as she made come from the finger" that she did unspecified things to.

I liked Willia immediately and liked her all the more as the book ran on. She lives in the Caribbean on an island called Geography Cay that's been kinda sorta owned by the Hannahs for the previous three hundred years, many of whom were pirates. It's sixty miles from Happy Bones, the island of the title, which is owned by Stony Smith, a gentleman who talks in a anachronistically antiquated style. Verily, brother. The government wants to build an air base on one of these two islands, as it would seriously aid the war effort by defending the Panama Canal and hunting U-boats.

There's so little here in the way of plot that you can probably construct the rest of the book from your knowledge of how the series formula works. We start in New York, as usual, and take a quick trip to Washington, DC. Halfway through, we make the location shift to somewhere more exotic, namely the aforementioned islands. Quite frankly, this isn't a 'Doc Savage' book to read for plot. Where it shines is in the character of Willia Hannah and a string of moments. I liked the delivery that sparks everything. I liked Monk getting knocked out. I liked Doc literally pulling a carpet out from under people.

I especially liked Doc's focus on a green parrot and its nest, to the befuddlement of everyone else. He has Renny and Johnny chase that angle down. "Do not overlook the parrot," he emphasises as he raises it for the first time. Ham and Monk have been in the story from the very beginning too, but Long Tom is overseas consulting with the Russian army and Pat's in California setting up the physical conditioning programme for a WAAC camp. They play no part here.

None of them really get that much to do, Monk getting knocked out and Johnny grinning at what Willia does a cab driver being the highlights. Well, that's until she capably demonstrates jujitsu on him out of nowhere: "Hannah seemed hardly to take hold of Johnny, and he was on the floor. Hannah immediately walked the length of his gaunt kicking frame, high heels and all." After that, she throws a chair at Doc, but he dodges. She's a firebrand and she has no compunction in telling it how it is. She's disappointed with Doc and his aides. "You're a bunch of false storms, if you ask me." She may not change her mind about that until Doc carries her through the treetops.

While this is enjoyable enough, it's a flimsy entry in the series, boosted mostly by the presence of Willia Hannah. Next up is 'The Mental Monster' and I'm hoping that there's going to be another kick-ass female character to rank alongside her and Willie Stevens. It's as if Dent had realised his lack of such over most of a ten year period and suddenly decided to address the problem. That or publishers Street & Smith felt the audience was either changing or should change. Is 'Doc Savage' just for boys or might girls get a kick out of it too? So I'm hoping there's another example in 'The Mental Monster'.

I'm also hoping, perhaps for the first time, that Dent stops layering weaknesses onto Doc. This is a common complaint by fans, I believe, maybe the primary such of the wartime stories, but I haven't shared that until this pair of stories. My complaint was the precise opposite at the outset of the series when Doc could practically leap tall buildings in a single bound. He isn't a superhero, he's a human being, merely one who's honed his mind and body so well that he can do things we can't. I like that optimisation of what humans can do, but I also like when he makes an occasional mistake, especially when it's due to plain bad luck. What I don't like is him making a series of major errors last time out and questioning his own ability here. ~~ Hal C F Astell

For Doc Savage titles 1-100 click here here
For Doc Savage titles 101 on click here