Jimmy Christopher, America's top Secret Service operative,
returns in THE INVISIBLE EMPIRE, the second novel in this great pulp series
from the Thirties. This breathless yarn appeared in the May 1934 issue of
the pulp OPERATOR #5. It opens with the maiden voyage of the dirigible Valley Forge being disrupted by the
sudden appearance of an invisible menace that knocks airplanes out of the sky
or causes them to disappear. At the same time, politicians and military figures
begin to vanish into thin air as well, only to be found later miles away, dead
from suffocation with their bodies frozen. Leaflets rain from the skies,
apparently from nowhere, calling on America to surrender to the might of the
Yellow Empire or face annihilation. The only person who can get to the bottom
of these mysteries and stop the apocalypse looming over the nation is Jimmy
Christopher, Operator 5...that is, if he can stop doing magic tricks for his
young pal Tim Donovan and get over his slightly creepy feelings for his twin
sister Nan long enough to battle the bad guys.
Snark aside, Operator 5 is one of my all-time favorite pulp series. Sure, the
stories have their over-the-top elements, and they're not any more politically
correct than anything else published in 1934, but they gallop along at a
wonderful pace and they're well-written, especially these early entries by
Frederick C. Davis writing under the house-name Curtis Steele. A lot of people
prefer the later novels by Emile C. Tepperman that center around the Purple
Invasion, but I think the first two years' worth of stories from Davis are even
better. They have the same crazed apocalyptic feel of Norvell Page's Spider
novels, but they're much better plotted and usually have better endings. In
reading this one, I thought for a while that I had caught Davis in a plot hole,
but sure enough, by the end of the story he had tied everything together in a
perfectly logical fashion. In many ways these remind me of modern-day thrillers by authors such as Vince Flynn and Brad Thor, but Jimmy Christopher can deal with worse menaces in a third as many words as those guys' heroes.
This particular novel has been reprinted a couple of times in paperback and in
trade paperback as well, and there's an e-book version that's still available.
I thoroughly enjoyed it, and if you can put yourself in that Thirties mind-set
like I can, there's a good chance you will, too.
6 comments:
Remarkable how much handsomer the original pulp cover is than those on the paperbacks...
The first twenty-odd Op 5 adventures (by Davis) had sort of a gee-whiz sense of wonder, and were great fun. When Emile Tepperman took over and steered the series into the Purple Invansion, the stories were incredibly dark and grim. It was a hell of a contrast, but I enjoyed both.
I liked Tepperman's books, too. I don't think I ever finished the Purple Invasion. I need to do that one of these days.
Todd's comment is interesting and I agree. Perhaps the artists were just better but I also think the larger 7 by 10 inch format allowed a far better image than the smaller paperback size.
I suspect, Walker, that the pulp's staff might've had a bit more respect for their potential audience...
Interesting piece. The Tepperman stuff has a wise-cracking and taunting Jimmy Christopher, and in the one Purple Invasion book I read--the first--the villains were imbecilic and easily overcome...despite having conquered America prior to the story. Although Frederick C. Davis does not have the flowing prose and sense of spatial orientation that Norvell W. Page has in the Spider books, Davis's plotting is more intricate and the villains are generally smarter than Spider villains. The Red Invader and Master of Broken Men are my two favorites of the seven Op 5 books I've read thus far, and right up there with my favorite Spiders.
Post a Comment