China Coaster by Don Smith. Captain Michael O’Connor
has lived most of his life on the China coast, working on ships in some
capacity, until becoming the captain of a ship owned by a Shanghai company.
When the communists move into China, foreigners lose their standings unless
they become Red. Mike finds himself without a ship, and out of a job. Then it
gets complicated. A Russian agent believes he is an American spy and tries to
kidnap him and take him to Russia, but he escapes. A White Russian girl hides
him, and he cares a lot for her, but she is murdered by the Russian agent, and
his only chance now is with the help of a Chinese gangster. Obtaining passage
on a ship, he finds out too late that it’s rigged for a pirate take over. His
suitcase contains weapons he wasn’t aware of, and when the pirates take control
of the ship, he is forced to steer it to their coordinates. With other American
and British on board, he must obey or the passengers could be killed. The
pirates loot the boat of Red China gold, and take it ashore at Bias Bay, where
it is then secreted away in care of the Chinese gangster. Now the book takes on
the plot of “Lost Horizons”, as he is taken to a mountain valley ruled over by
the pirates, and headed by Pao Chu, a 25-year-old beautiful American girl. She
had been shipwrecked as a child, and a Mandarin (the Chinese gangster) had
raised her as his daughter. They fall in love and he wants to take her to San
Francisco, and leave China waters, but first he wants to kill the Russian agent
who had murdered the girl in Shanghai. He goes after the Russian, and while
away, the Chinese gangster dies, and chaos reigns in Chingfoo, the
Shangri-la-like village. Returning for his love, Pao Chu, he finds one of the
pirates in charge, holding her a prisoner. Now they must escape this paradise
and make their way to Hong Kong and America, if they don’t get killed first.
This was an action-packed novel, and predates the author’s more popular Secret
Mission spy series. The story is copyright 1952, but my copy is dated 1953. A
good plot, and a fun read.
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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