Continuing through the Captain Hawklin adventures, a New Pulp hero written by Charles F. Millhouse, I am now up to the sixth novel: Captain Hawklin and the Shadow Men.
Published in 2019, it is set in July 1937. The previous novels had been going backwards chronologically, but this one is set between The Underwater Menace and The Skyhook Pirates. I would recommend that you have read The Underwater Menace before this one, as what happens there leads to what causes the events of this novel.
So who is Captain Hawklin? He was a World War I fighter pilot, now is an inventor and adventurer, rich from his inventions. He lives and works in Crown City, located on the west coast of the United States. His headquarters is located in the main tower of the Hampton Bridge, which he designed and built. He has been setting up an independent airwing called the Clandestine Wing, which we see in action here for the first time. To me, he is more like the aviation pulp adventurers like Bill Barnes than Doc Savage.
He doesn’t have a large organization. He is assisted by Hardy Regan Miller and Oscar (Oz) Lyman. While it may seem they form a Ham/Monk dynamic, that’s not so. There is no bickering or the like. Hardy is tall and neat, has been with Hawklin since the war, and is a pilot and mechanic. Oz is short and stout, and war veteran but now a pacifist, and used to work for Frank Buck.
In this novel, the three men are off in different places. Hawklin is in Crown City with his Crusaders, who fly his Silver Avenger planes, in an airshow. Oz is in Montana with Professor Gray, who had worked with the team in The Subterranean Empire and in an early adventure in Egypt. And Hardy is in Germany working to get a family out with the raising power of the Nazis threatening people there.
Hardy runs into trouble, as it appears he was expected. He is able to get the family out, but is pursued and wounded.
A developer wants to build a ski resort (did they exist back then?), but the local tribe disagrees, as the mountain being planned for it is sacred to their god. Someone seems to be causing problems, and Gray and Oz are in the middle of it.
While Hawklin and his Crusaders are flying, a strange plane attacks Hawklin, to be chased off by three others. Who is behind this attack? Hawklin is approached by a strange group of people who call themselves the “Shadow Men.” They are a secret group of British intelligence, and it appears the person who attacked Hawklin is one of their agents gone rogue. He is the son of a general who died in The Underwater Menace, and blames Hawklin and several others for this and wants revenge, not knowing that his father was a traitor. And he is behind the capture of Hardy to use him as bait for a showdown with Hawklin.
So will Hawklin succeed and free Hardy? Will Oz and Professor Gray figure out what is behind the conflict in Montana and unmask the true villain? Read and find out.
Overall I’ve been enjoying this series. I wonder if we’ll see novels move into the 1940s, and how the growing war will affect storylines. There is one more published novel to go, with another promised for later this summer. I look forward to both and any further stories. Check out this series.
