RICK BRANT THE PHANTOM SHARK

 THE MYTHICAL TERROR OF THE SOUTH SEAS

This is an in-depth article about the Rick Brant book The Phantom Shark that appeared in the April 2001 Yellowback Library fanzine. Click on the images to enlarge for reading. Then click on the URL at bottom left of image to enlarge further.

To read The Quest of the Golden Dragon, the fan-written sequel to The Phantom Shark, being presented on this blog in serial format,
click HERE for Chapter One: STEALTH IN THE NIGHT

BIFF BREWSTER HAWAIIAN SEA HUNT

Biff Brewster #3:
HAWAIIAN SEA HUNT MYSTERY

This is a very good book and I really enjoyed it. A great mystery-adventure!

Biff and his entire family travel to Hawaii for a vacation while his dad attends a mining engineer's conference.  As soon as they arrive, all kinds of intrigue begins and, of course, Biff finds himself at the very center of it. Mr. Brewster's associate, Dr. Weber, a famous scientist he was supposed to meet in Honolulu, is missing, and before you can say 'Aloha' Biff and his dad are off in search of him.

Biff's native buddy in this book is Li, a young Hawaiian boy, and I like the way he is portrayed. He's not the usual 'unafraid of anything' Biff-buddy. This kid gets scared at times and it's very realistic. Off the boys go, island-hopping with their dads in search of the missing scientist, a sunken sloop, and the map to a cache of Cesium, a rare mineral important to rocket 


Biff's dad plays an important role in this adventure like he did in #1 Brazilian Gold Mine Mystery.  Again, it's nice to read about father and son sharing an adventure like this and getting along so well. They eventually rent a yawl and take off by sea for the big island of Hawaii as they search for the missing scientist. They end up at the southern cape of the island where dads and sons get separated, Biff and Li get separated by a Kona storm, and the ruthless rival engineer who is their enemy  shows up ready to do away with them all.  Much of the action takes place on Mauna Loa, a volcano that apparently takes up the entire lower part of the cape, and the waters that surround it.  Of course, I had a map out and everything checked out correctly.

This book was probably written by the author of #2 Mystery of the Chinese Ring, who is unknown, as this is the only other Biff Brewster with unknown authorship. It has the same simple style and flowing pace  where the story and suspense build nicely without any kind of overwriting or confusion. Also, a plus in this book, you could trade the names Biff, Li, and Tom Brewster for Rick, Scotty, and Hartson Brant, and you'd have a terrific Rick Brant book here. There is enough science to satisfy that requirement and the story is very much like the beloved Rick Brant South Seas epics such as 100 Fathoms Under and The Phantom Shark. Rick and Scotty would have had a good time with this mystery-adventure. If you are a Rick Brant fan and haven't read the Biff Brewster books, start now. Biff is enough like Rick, yet refreshingly himself, to satisfy any Rick Brant cravings.

Probably the Biff Brewster books were meant to compete with the Rick Brants, but of course any young reader would have wanted all of them, both the Biffs and the Ricks.  I rate this book a 9 out 10. It's a really good adventure out in the warm South Seas sun, especially appealing at this wintry time of year when most of us just wish we were 16 again like Biff and could go roaming around the world getting caught up in this kind of excitement!

BIFF BREWSTER BRAZILIAN GOLD MINE

Biff Brewster #1:
BRAZILIAN GOLD MINE MYSTERY


A great beginning for a terrific boys adventure series!







This is the first book in the Biff Brewster series and it was written by Walter Gibson, a pulp writer famous for The Shadow series. It is believed that he actually rewrote this story from an original manuscript that G&D was not satisfied with, but the story and text bear all the hallmarks of his florid exciting style and it is very representative of his usual works. Gibson also wrote a few other books in this series, a Vicki Barr Stewardess Mystery entitled The Brass Idol Mystery, and perhaps some other series books as a ghostwriter. One that I suspect he wrote is The Ruby Ray Mystery, a Rick Brant book that seems to have Gibson's signature style all over it.

This book starts off with Biff flying down to Brazil from his home in Indiana to meet his dad for a jungle safari, a sort of 16th birthday gift for him. His dad is a field engineer for Ajax Mining Company and they will be seeking out rubber supplies in the jungle. His dad's boss, Mr. Stannart, gives Biff a letter to deliver to his dad, and Biff is told to guard it with his life. On the airplane ride down there a strange fellow tries to get too friendly with Biff, and when Biff does meet up with his dad the secret letter proves to be a warning of impending danger. The real reason for the safari is revealed to Biff; the search for a fabulous gold mine of the legendary El Dorado along a tributary of the Amazon.

All the obligatory troubles beset them. Their hotel room is ransacked. They are kidnapped and brought upriver in a boat. And it all proves out to be part of an elaborate plan to stop the safari by others who are looking for the gold mine too.  Biff meets Kamuka, an Indian boy who is his buddy in this book, and the safari finally gets under way only to be beset by more treachery and peril than even Indiana Jones ever has to deal with. Giant anaconda cobras, head-hunters, quicksand, treacherous native bearers, and every other imaginable danger of the Amazon region plague the safari as they follow jungle trails, rivers, move on, get captured, escape, and on and on.

The action literally never stops in this book and there are a lot of great escapes and a good deal of suspense. A lot of research work was put into this story and there is a great deal of interesting geography related.  The problem of the many languages spoken in the region is not skirted. It is handled well and a lot of thought was put into working it out. There is also a very good surprise twist at the end, almost a regular feature in every Biff Brewster book. Even so, I didn't expect it at all.

The Biff Brewster series was a property of Grosset & Dunlap publishers, not a Stratemeyer Syndicate property as many fans and collectors believe. Several different writers were used for the thirteen volumes in the series, and the other books that Gibson wrote are Mystery of the Mexican Treasure, Mystery of the Ambush in India, Egyptian Scarab Mystery, and Mystery of the Alpine Pass. Gibson was noted for planting clues in his books that show up in other books by him, a way for his avid fans to know that he had written books under pseudonyms. You can find many of these 'plants' in all these books.

I rate this book a 9 out of 10. It's a stellar example of what boys' adventure mysteries used to be like in the days when adventure and mystery were the focus, not high tech gadgetry and whiz-bang world-hopping. It'd be great to have books like this being written today, about real live boys who have realistic adventures  with real villains, not pseudo-human boys with silly magical powers having fantasy adventures with monsters, non-humans, and the living dead.

Will realistic books for young people ever be popular again? Or are we doomed to have to bear with books that don't use humans as heroes or villains because you just can't say anything not nice about anybody anymore without getting a finger pointed at you? The politically correct movement has gotten way out of hand when editors will not even consider books about real young people battling real human villains!

HARDY BOYS ABANDONED FARM

THE ABANDONED FARM MYSTERY
Hardy Boys fanfiction at its best!

This full-length Hardy Boys mystery by a Canadian fan is a stellar example of top-notch fanfiction. Anyone who loves the vintage Hardy Boys will really enjoy this book, which is one of three that this fan has written and printed in book form for other fans only.


The Abandoned Farm Mystery is written in the tradition and style of the first nine original-text Hardy Boys books, as authored by Leslie McFarlane. The atmosphere and characterizations are the same as in those early beloved texts. The author uses people, sites, backstory, and even villains from the originals, and it's one big ball to revisit all this once again in a very original story.

To be fair, this book would have benefited by professional editing, but that's really a moot point; it's well-written enough and no Hardy Boys fan is going to care that it isn't perfect because it is so much fun to read.

The Bayport area and surrounding environs are experiencing a rash of robberies at upscale estates owned by wealthy and important businessmen. Elroy Jefferson is one of them; his stamp collection is stolen again! Another victim is wealthy Morgan Monarch, now the step-father of the boy Lester from The Secret of the Old Mill. Lester joins Frank and Joe to do some river-sleuthing in this book in ther boat the Sleuth.

The boys work on helping their dad solve the case of the estate robberies locally, as he goes off to Boston and New York to look for clues. I had to laugh because this is so true: Fenton Hardy is always going out-of-town to solve mysteries that take place right there in Bayport! The boys take off to Cabin Island for a few days with their whole gang of chums, and there they witness strange signal lights coming from an abandoned farm on shore , and night-riding boats motoring back and forth between the mainland and the island.

It's great to return to Cabin Island again, and to Amos Grice's general store in Bayville. The boys and chums do a lot of sleuthing on the island, at the abandoned farm on the mainland, and up and down the Willow River near Bayport. They even stop at the Old Mill to search for clues, and it's great fun revisiting all these sites again.


Aunt Gertrude is her wacky old self in this book, uproariously funny at times as she tries to manipulate the boys into doing her bidding and continuously meddles in their business. There are food feasts with the chums , long discussions about past adventures on Blacksnake Island, Tower Mansion, the Old Mill, Cabin Island, and the Shore Road, and all the great camaraderie the early Hardys are famous for.

The other two titles by this author are The Abandoned Railroad Mystery and The Abandoned Fishing Lodge Mystery. These books are well-made hardbacks with hand-drawn endpapers and frontispieces. The other two are just as good as this one and will bring you back to the early days of the Hardy Boys when mystery and adventure and good times with all the chums thrilled millions of readers.

These books were advertised in one of the leading series books fanzines a number of years ago.

BIFF BREWSTER CHINESE RING

BIFF BREWSTER #2
 MYSTERY OF THE CHINESE RING

Simplicity is often one of the best rules to follow in art, and this book is a beautiful example of simplicity. The plot is spare: Biff flies to Rangoon in Burma to visit his Uncle Charlie who is an aviator. Uncle Charlie is missing over the border in Red China. Biff and his Burmese buddy Chuba go look for him. Will they find and rescue him in that land of terrors? Ah, read the book.

Simplicity also rules the writing - plain straight forward prose and dialogue, nothing convoluted or exotic like in the previous volume in this series by Walter Gibson (Brazilian Gold Mine Mystery), whose stunning verbose prose can sometimes give you a headache. And even though this book was written at the height of the cold war about cold war territories, there is no propaganda in it favoring any participants, contrary to what some other reveiwers claim. It helps to have lived during the era, which I did, to sort out propaganda from the truth.

This book starts out at A, goes on to B, then C, and on and on in a very logical unconfusing manner as plot and action carry the story on without choppiness or episodic passages. I'd really like to know who wrote this Biff (it sure wasn't Walter Gibson): it is one of the best written series books I have read. I'd compare it to the smoothness and quality of the better Ken Holts and Connie Blairs, and Nancy Drew's The Password to Larkspur Lane, although simpler.

In this story, Biff flies to Rangoon in Burma to spend a couple weeks with his Uncle Charlie, who runs a flying business out there. Biff carries with him a ring belonging to an ancient Chinese "House" that was given to him back home under strange circumstances. He is followed by suspicious-acting Asian men on the airplanes and is immediately kidnapped upon arrival. But he unexpectedly escapes in a really good scene that rivals the best of Hollywood escape scenarios, and he meets up with his uncle's partner who takes him upcountry where the flying company is located near the Chinese border.

It does not take long for Biff to learn that Uncle Charlie went on a secret flying mission into China and has not yet returned. Next day a garbled radio message is received from Uncle Charlie telling them that he is in danger. Biff has befriended Chuba, a native boy who works at the outpost and is familiar with the nearby China territories, so naturally they plan to sneak into China and rescue Uncle Charlie. Heck, I would have done it at sixteen. So would you.

When I first read this book in 1960 I was fifteen years old. I was thrilled beyond all get-out at the idea of a boy my age trying to sneak into Red China. Heck, everyone wanted to get OUT of there, not into it. It was a daring plan and a thrilling reading experience. The two boys' entry into China, through jungle perils and past armed guards, is presented so realistically and with such breathtaking suspense that I had to stop and go back and reread the whole thing all over again.

There is nothing about this book that is rushed or silly or unbelievable or childish - it all makes perfect sense. Two such boys on their own could actually do it, and they do. Once in China, they begin the long trek to the area in which it is believed Uncle Charlie ran into his problems. Clues seem to fall into their hands much too easily and Biff begins to wonder if he's being manipulated and led into a trap himself. Is there some secret about the Chinese ring he has with him that is intertwined with the fate of his uncle and the reason for his captivity?

The author of this book does not skimp on this either. There is a reason for the captivity and it's a good one. Biff and Chuba eventually do get captured and their imprisonment is nerve-wracking because they are unable to do anything about it. No secret escape hatches here. But they do have an ace up their collective sleeve and the waiting for that ace to get popping is a great ploy by the author to keep up the suspense. And I won't tell anymore because you gotta read it!

It is not known who wrote this book. What a shame because it is one of the best-loved boys series books. I rate this book a rock hard ten out of ten. It's good enough to be on the same shelf with Rick Brant's The Caves of Fear and The Pirates of Shan, Ken Holt's The Secret of Skeleton Island, Nancy Drew's The Password to Larkspur Lane, Connie Blair's Peril in Pink and The Yellow Warning, the Hardy Boys' The House on the Cliff, and the few other vintage series books that I think are the best of the genre. It's easy to follow, has great characters and suspense, and keeps you turning the pages and just does not let you down at all!

And if you are one of these trendy readers who are hooked on Harry or Percy or any of these non-human or already-dead heroes who have silly magical powers and impossible adventures, toss them aside and read this book to see how a real boy can have a a REAL adventure far more exciting than any make-believe ones in fantasy land!