The Half-Caste by Dan Cushman. Frisco Dougherty is back after JEWEL
OF THE JAVA SEA in another tale of island intrigue. While in Bandjermasin, South Borneo, on the
Java Sea, he is approached by Captain Jaske to assist in getting his boat
released from impound. He has important passengers to transport, and the only
ones who can allow the boat’s release is Dougherty’s old pals, the Chinese
gang, the Wash’eng. But something is not on the up and up. The local headman,
Wu has some interest in the passengers, and what they are after. They include a
handsome sportsman, a priest, and a beautiful woman. The woman claims to be the
daughter of a famous paleontologist killed during the Japanese invasion, and
buried in the jungle. But something is fishy about the whole deal. If readers
will recall, Dougherty took a young woman to marry at the end of JEWEL OF THE
JAVA SEA, and he does mention a ex wife, a princess, back in the States, with
their two sons, but he’s unattached again and back in the Java Sea area. It’s
good because the woman in this case also has a mix of island blood and
Oriental, maybe Tonkenese. It looks like Dougherty may be killed by the
Wach’eng this time, if not by the girl or one of her partners, for none will
stop at anything to get what’s really inside the coffin they retrieve. But the
ending has a nice twist, and one that gave me a good laugh.
Earl Norman
The Earl Norman books are becoming extremely rare, and publishers don’t seem to be interested in reprinting the series. The only way some of us may ever have all the stories is for collectors to scan and type the stories into PDF to swap with other collectors. I have already completed PDFs of HANG ME IN HONG KONG and KILL ME IN ROPPONGI. I am working on KILL ME IN YOKOSUKA. If other collectors would do the same for some of the other books, we could eventually have PDFs of all ten books. Why not help? I can be contacted at fadingshadows40@gmail.com
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