Captain Hawklin is a New Pulp hero written by Charles F. Millhouse. He is a former World War I fighter pilot, later becoming an adventurer and inventor, and is rich from those inventions. He is based in Crown City, a large fictional city located on the west coast of the United States. There, he built his headquarters as well as a private air corps.
To me, he is more like the aviation-pulp adventurers such as Bill Barnes than Doc Savage. Hawklin is assisted by Hardy Regan Miller and later Oscar (Oz) Lyman. Hardy appears in stories and is mentioned in a couple of others. Hawklin’s world is similar to ours, except that the supernatural does exist, and Hawklin and his associates sometimes have to contend with that.
So far, we’ve gotten a series of 10 novels set in the 1930s, one for each year, as well as several short stories, and a large novel covering WWII. Most recently, the 1930s novels and short stories have been reprinted in three omnibus volumes. In addition, we have a series of stories by other authors, collected as The Lost Adventures of Captain Hawklin.
This third volume has five stories by Millhouse, along with Brian K. Morris, Clyde Hall, John C. Bruening, and L.S. Goozdich. All stories are set in 1946 and 1947.
First up from Millhouse is “Secrets of the Rising Sun.” It’s 1946, and while Hawklin’s wife Desa is expecting their first child, he’s in occupied Japan helping the British ambassador. There, he gets a hint that Amelia Earhart survived and was captured by the Japanese. Looking into it, he runs afoul of an old foe, General Kord. Will he succeed in finding her, or at least answer what happened? And will Kord finally pay for all that he has done?
Next is L.S. Goozdich’s “The Darkest Hour,” set in 1947. Hawklin is asked for help by a friend who runs a large business that is being victimized by saboteurs. Who is behind it? Looking into it, Hawklin runs into a journalist who is also investigating, and it seems there is a conspiracy that involves the Soviets. Is this an attempt to turn the growing “cold war” hot? Or something much worse? And will Hawklin be able to stop it before it goes too far?
From Clyde Hall, we get “Two Eagles, One Shot,” also set in 1947 during the establishment of the U.S. Air Force as a separate branch. Hawklin is called in by a couple of agents of the new CIA to help them with a threat: a possible assassination attempt on General MacArthur in Japan. Is it real or not? Hawklin will soon find out, coming to face another old foe. I wonder about the two characters who appear here: an Ackerman and a Kehoe. Were they named as a nod to their more famous counterparts?
We then jump back to our earliest story in this volume, set in 1946, with Brian K. Morris’ “To Prolong Nuremberg.” This one takes Hawklin on a special mission for the CIA to Argentina. He seems to be on the trail of some former Nazis who have fled there. But who is friend and who is foe?
And finally, from John C. Bruening, we get “The V2 Affair.” In 1947, the U.S. is working with former V-2 rockets and German scientists at White Sands. But there have been issues, including two rocket crashes. Are these just technical problems or something more? Hawklin is brought in to find out. And will these tie back to a previous case he dealt with?
At the back of the volume is the updated Hawklin timeline, including the five stories here. I would have preferred they had been included in chronological order, but that’s me. It’s interesting that several of these stories tie back to past adventures, and in some cases, we are able to close out some threads.
So what’s next? Right now, Stormgate Press has put out its third wave of Quick Reads booklets, and my review is out. I hope we’ll start seeing new Hawklin novels set in the postwar period, but we will have to see what comes out. Be aware that Millhouse has other series as well, and take a look at those, too.
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