"The waves overwhelmed me again and again. They flung me back, as if unwilling to take another victim."
You know, I don't know why I didn't pick this up to read ages ago. I got it in one the very first batches of pulp novels I bought when I first started collecting them. I've had it for many years. I loved the cover - the skinny dipping girl giving the come-hither eye to the guy currently in a frantic bid to dislodge his foot from his deck shoe in order to join her. The great back cover with the same? girl being leered at by a couple of creepy sailors. I must have never read the descriptions before because if I had, I surely would have read it immediately. Catch words and phrases like "Deserted island", "pirate treasure", "an assortment of villains", "sadistic hunchback and his negro companion with peculiar methods of persuasion" Seriously, could that sound any better? Would it help if I told you that the sadistic hunchback is also a little person or that the deserted island is also eerily shaped like and resembles a skull upon approach? Or that that island is inhabited solely by a crazy swedish hermit? It just keeps getting better.
The story is fantastic. Perfect rugged men's adventure type stuff. A couple of can't hold a job, caribbean adventurer types who appear to be friends but only barely get along and are clearly going to cross one another at some point get hold of an ancient treasure map pointing to a hidden treasure of the notorious french pirate L'Ollonais. The one who owns the boat decides out of a clear blue sky to take on a pretty young american girl to the crew despite all the tales of women being bad luck on a ship. This drives an even deeper wedge between the two friends. Thus begins a breakneck trip across the caribbean with enemies in tow all hoping to get a bit of the gold. Truly great writing as well, with some beautiful picturesque moments.
Awesome. 5 stars. 10 out of 10 and all that. If you see this one, don't pass it up!
"I started stringing together the longest, best and most descriptive series of curses and oaths that I knew. To the most anonymous listener, it must have been a puny effort. My imagination had been atrophied by what had really happened. If the world was sane, I was off my head. And that was no inducement to the artistry needed to produce elegant swearing."
3 comments:
A wonderful package all around. If only they'd thought to put the "sadistic hunchback and his Negro companion" on the back cover.
Written by the man who ghosted Ronald Reagan's 1965 autobiography, I note.
I actually own a copy of this --more for the cover than anything else. You've inspired me to crack it open. (Carefully, though!)
A little off topic but you guys might like this. Google the following- Kenneth Rexroth and Lawrence Ferlinghetti- Poetry Readings in the Cellar with the Cellar Jazz Quintet (Fantasy 7002, 1957) A torrent link should come up, I liked it. JB
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