It seems like I had just read and posted on the latest Vic Challenger novel, #7, by Jerry Gill, when I find out there was another put out before the end of 2018: Vic Challenger, No. 8: Mystery & Magic.
Set in the 1920s, the New Pulp series stars young Victoria Custer who discovers she is the reincarnation of a cave girl, Nat-ul, who lived 100,000 years ago.
Using the name “Vic Challenger,” she works as a travel writer (and adventurer) while looking for her soul mate from 100,000 years ago, whom she thinks is also reincarnated. But in her travels, she gets into various dangers, and the experience in her past life as a cave girl warrior helps her out.
The character actually comes from Edgar Rice Burroughs‘ The Eternal Lover (later renamed The Eternal Savage). As the Burroughs novel is in the public domain, I am sure calling the character “Vic Challenger” makes it easier to copyright this different take on the character.
As in all the other novels, Vic and her friends always come up against bad guys and dangerous cryptids. This one is also set more close to home, and seems to be a bit of a holiday story as well.
It’s set later in the same year that No. 7 occurred, and Vic has been recovering from the events in that story with a few camping trips, but nothing much else. As Christmas nears, she is presented with a couple of mysteries. She is contacted by Evelyn Chan, the niece of Charlie Chan, who she met in the second novel. Evelyn has been asked to assist her cousins deal with a couple of mysteries at their farm in Washington state. There is a ghost that has been haunting their house for decades, and there also appear to be ape-like creatures in the woods nearby.
Surprisingly, despite her injuries from what happened in No. 7, Lin Li decides to come along as well. They start to work on both mysteries. Vic, being a re-incarnated cavegirl, knows the ancient language of primates, so is able to communication with the ape-like creatures, and learns they are actually two primate species. They are able to work things out with some of them.
As to the ghost, it’s real and tied to an unknown family tragedy. The three girls, along with Evelyn’s family members, must dig into family history to figure out who the ghost is, why he haunted the house, and how to help the ghost move on.
It’s yet another good story. It does resolve some of what happened in the previous novel. I was surprised by having a real ghost in the story, as the series has been fairly realistic, despite the cryptids. The supernatural really hasn’t occurred in the series so far — reincarnation aside.
There are a couple of flubs that I caught as a pulp fan. Mention is made of Weird Tales and Unknown. However, the story is set in 1923, and Weird Tales started that year, so the claim of one character to having read it “for years” is impossible. Worse, Unknown didn’t appear until 1939.
I am sure another novel is in the works, but have no idea when to expect it. This is a good series, and it’s aimed at young adults, so check it out and introduce your kids to it. I sent the first two novels to my young nieces. I have to see if they’ve read and enjoyed it.
