Ghosts, Gangsters and... the Andrew Sisters?

 

Last week, I wrote about the 1951 Bowery Boys movie Ghost Chasers, noting that it was a movie that Dan Aykroyd once said was an inspiration for Ghostbusters. The inspiration was purely a thematic one--providing the idea of setting a comedic ghost story in modern times. The other two movies Aykroyd mentioned were The Ghost Breakers, which I reviewed a few years ago, and the 1941 Abbott and Costello comedy Hold That Ghost.

Hold that Ghost is oddly structured in terms of story. Bud and Lou play two gas station attendants who--through bizarre circumstances--inherit a tavern from a gangster they met only moments before the gangster is killed. In the finished movie, the scene opens in a swanky restaurant, with the boys trying and failing to make it as waiters before getting fired and returning to their gas station jobs. Though there is some plot exposition provided, it has nothing to do with the rest of the film. So why was this scene--added late in the production--in the film at all?

The answer is The Andrew Sisters. They had been in the previous two A & C films, which were huge hits. So Universal executives decided they needed to be in this one at well. 

And that's okay, because the boys' shenanigans as waiters are funny and the Andrew Sisters are fantastic. 

We also see then-well-known bandleader Ted Lewis do some of his act.  This includes his song "Me and My Shadow," in which a black dancer mimics his movements. It's definitely a moment in which the casual racism of the era seeps into the film--but on the other hand, it should be mentioned that Ted Lewis was one of the earliest white stars to highlight black performers in his act. It's yet another case of recognizing the sins of the past, placing them in context and then deciding individually whether it interfers with your enjoyment of the film as a whole.

Because the rest of the film is pretty darn funny. The boys, along with several other stranded passengers, end up at their newly-inherited tavern, which used to be a speakeasy and casino. One of the reluctant guests is actually a gangster himself, looking for loot supposedly hidden in the building. But he's soon murdered. Ghostly happenings ensue. But is the ghost a ghost or a mere mortal with murderous intent?

This allows for a lot of great slapstick, including a sequence in which Lou's room keeps changing from a bedroom into a mini-casino, then changing back whenever he runs to get Bud. Lou also has a hilarious dance sequence with actress Joan Davis (who proves to have great comedic chemistry with him throughout the movie). A scene in which Lou watches a candle move around a table whenever Joan isn't looking 

A chase scene through the tavern with Lou being pursued by gangsters provides an uproarious climax.

In terms of plot execution, Hold That Ghost doesn't always properly explain everything that happens at the possibly-haunted mansion. But in an Abbott and Costello movie, if you have a choice between inserting a few more gags or tying up every loose end to the story, then going for more gags would be the correct decision.

This brings our "Influences for Ghostbusters" trifecta to an end.

Sitting Around and Doing Nothing

 

cover art by Al Plastino

In a cute story from Action Comics #140 (January 1950), written by Dorothy Woolfolk and drawn by Al Plastino, Superman seems to have taken up the "job" of sitting alone in the desert, doing nothing.

The world gets worried when Superman doesn't show up for several charity events. He even disappoints a bunch of kids by not coming to their baseball game as promised. Why? No one knows. When a pilot spots him in the desert, he simply shouts out for everyone to go away.

That's not very Superman-y behavior. Soon, people are showing up to find out what's what. Superman is polite and even expresses regret at seeming rude, but he quickly builds a fence around the spot at which he is sitting. When people attempt to parachute in, he builds a roof.

Well, Lois Lane isn't going to put up with that nonsense. She also parachutes in... but without actually wearing a parachute! Superman, naturally, is forced to save her.

This gets her inside his little enclave, where he finally explains what he's doing. He's been thinking hard--because there's a specific threat to the world and he doesn't know how to deal with it.

A meteor has carried a plant to the surface of the Earth. This plant grows at a super-fast rate and threatens to eventually engulf the planet. It also proves to be indestructable and returns to the Earth whenever Superman throws it into orbit. 

Didn't I say in my review of a Magnus Robot Fighter story that meteors are never good and always bring trouble? Didn't I? No one ever listens to me!

Of course, all of us are wondering why he didn't fly it into space and toss it into a star or a black hole. But this is still early in Superman's career. Golden Age Supes didn't have quite the same level of powers that Silver Age Supes would be demonstrating a few years later. How powerful he was in 1950 is probably portrayed a little inconsistently from issue to issue, but I think we can just allow the story to go with its premise without it setting off our "Continuity Alarms." I'm pretty sure this story would retroactively be considered to be a part of Earth-2, where Superman was less powerful for much of his early career.

Anyway, Superman has simply been thinking of a way to save the Earth. At that time, two men (who have decided Superman must be guarding a treasure, fly in via helicoptor through the hole in the roof Superman made when saving Lois. They threaten to shoot her if Superman doesn't hand over that treasure.

It's an empty threat. The two guys aren't really crooks and their guns are empty. They are simply reacting to their greed without giving their plan sufficient thought. Superman instantly sees that their guns are indeed empty and also notices his X-Ray vision has an effect on the plant. 

He doesn't even bother to lock the would-be crooks up before zippng off to buld a device for intensifying his X-Ray vision. This explodes the plant and the world is saved. As Lois later tells Clark: "When you go away on vacation, all you get is a sunburn. When Superman went on vacation, he saves the world!"

Poor Clark. He never does anything right, does he?

Despite its ominous title, "The Creeping Death" is a cute story. I like the idea that Lois will throw herself out of an airplane with complete confidence that Superman will save her. I like the way Superman remains polite even when he's chasing people away. I like that there's a problem that has him stumped for a time in how to deal with it despite all his powers. 

Next week, we'll visit with the master swordsman Zorro. 

Cover Cavalcade

 

MARCH IS GIANT MONSTER MONTH!

The original 1932 dust jacket for the novelization of King Kong. 

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Inner Sanctum: "The Girl and the Gallows" 5/1/45

A murdered man may or may not have been seen in a vision by a woman who may or may not be psychic and who may or may not exist.

Click HERE to listen or download

Chasing Fake Ghosts with a Real Ghost

 Dan Aykroyd has mentioned the 1951 Bowery Boys movie Ghost Chasers (along with Abbott and Costello's Hold That Ghost and Bob Hope's The Ghost Breakers) as influences for Ghostbusters. It was these three early films that inspired the idea of setting a comedic ghost story in a modern setting.

Ghost Chasers' influence on Ghostbusters is simply thematic. In terms of plot and character, any simularities are tenouos at best. But if you like the Bowery Boys during their later comedic phase (and I do) then its a fun and funny film. As was standard for their films, Ghost Chasers depends on the malaproprisms of Slip (Leo Gorcey) and the stupidity-based slapstick of Sach (Huntz Hall) for humor. This includes a wonderful scene in which Slip is instructing a poor girl in proper diction. 

The plot involves the boys plotting to expose a fake spiritualist. I love the way they get involved in this. A lady living in the apartment next door to slip is feeling down because she had lost her son in the war. Slip stops by just to let her prepare him a meal, knowing that this would make her feel better. (She's Italian.) When Slip finds out she's being conned by a spiritualist who claims to be able to talk to her son, he immediately comes up with a plan to stop this. The Bowery Boys films are without question light-weight fluff, but stuff like this gives the series a real heart.

It soon turns out that there's a real ghost hanging around--sent down from the afterlife to also help expose the spiritualists. Edgar Alden Franklin Smith (a Pilgrim-era man) is played to perfection by character actor Lloyd Corrigan, who speaks in King James English and endows Edgar with charm and likeability.

Edgar has several handy abilities, including being able to teleport quickly from one spot to another and make doors appear in walls by sketching out the door in chalk. The trouble is that only Sach can see and hear him, causing the other boys to think that poor Sach may finally be going off the deep edge he's been toddering along for years. 

There's a lot of great slapstick involved in the effort to nail the bad guys, including futile attempts to escape from a death trap (they need to be saved by Edgar) and a wonderful sequence in which the boys are frozen in mid-motion by a hypnotist. In the end, though, it works out and the bad guys are foiled. 

Well, I reviewed The Ghost Breakers a few years ago and now I've talked about Ghost Chasers. I suppose I should finish up the "They influenced Ghostbusters" trifecta with a look at Hold That Ghost.

Giant Robot Monsters and Still More Teenage Shenanigans

 

cover art by Vic Prezzio

As teenage sidekicks go, the teenage Outsiders do okay for themselves. In Magnus Robot Fighter #14 (May 1966), they help save the world. 

"The Monster Robs" is written by Herb Kastle and is drawn (in his usual magnificent fashion) by Russ Manning. The story begins with a meteor landing in a city park. In any science fiction story, this is never a good thing. Meteors are never just meteors. They always bring something ominous. 

In this case, they bring bubbles that seep out of the meteor whenever its dark. In turn, these bubbles cause robots to enlarge and go on rampages. Both the meteor in the park and a fragment picked up by one of the Outsiders do this.

Soon, there are giant robots rampaging throughout the city. Magnus rips the head off of one, but has to resort to an experimental ray gun to take them out enmasse. 

Magnus is soon urging the North Am city council to destroy all robots, because otherwise they will grow big enough in mass to threaten the Earth. But obstrusive bureacrats exist in the future as well as in the present. They complain about the cost of the damage done so far, but refuse to consider losing more money by dealing with the problem.

Fortunately, the Outsiders have been experimenting with the fragment they have and have discovered the bubbles that enlarge the robots and also that the meteor only emits them when it is dark. They have to tackle a robot to make a rather unauthorized entrance into the council chamber, but they soon bring Magnus up to speed.

Magnus confirms the information about the bubbles, but that raises a question of what to do about it. The meteor is indestructable and it can't be encased in metal, because the bubbles would merely make the metal grow. (A bit of a plot hole here--if the bubbles enlarge all metal and not just robots, why aren't the buildings of North Am growing larger?)

Well, before they can deal with the meteor, they need to take care of a few more attacking giant robots. When Magnus is knocked out in the ensuing fight, the Outsiders use some clever tactics to take out a few giants themselves.

Eventually, Magnus hits upon the idea of encasing the meteor in quartz. This, plus an whopping big ray gun to destroy the giants, soon solves the problem.

As with the issue we looked at last week, the Outsiders tend to cause trouble by sometimes ignoring rules or safety measures (sneaking into a restricted area in issue #8, taking a piece of the meteor in this issue). But they always accept responsibility, act intelligently in dangerous situations and are willing to put themselves at risk to do what's right. As I said above, as teenage sidekicks, they do okay for themselves.

Next week, we'll watch Superman sit around and do nothing.

Cover Cavalcade

 

MARCH IS GIANT MONSTER MONTH!

A 1962 cover by Joe Sinnott

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Night Beat: "Gunner's Last Fight" 8/14/50

A washed-up boxer tries to make a comeback. Gangsters want him to throw the fight and his gold-digging wife wants him to take the fall and pocket the cash. But he is determined to fight to win. Even if it kills him.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

From the Small Screen to the Printed Page, Part 2

 As a kid, I loved Starsky and Hutch, mostly because of the cool car and the frequent gun fights. When I watched a few episodes as an adult, I wasn't as automatically impressed. The car is still cool and I still enjoy watching gun fights, but the scripts were sometimes sloppily written and cheesy. An episode in which they talk down a crazed criminal who is holding a woman at knife point by putting their guns down and raising their hands to show they don't mean him any harm is an eye-rolling experience. 

But when a strongly written episode shows up, the car, gun fights and the chemisty between the two lead characters can give you a very entertaining hour.  

Of the eight Starsky and Hutch tie-in novels published, I've recently found and read two of them. Both were written by Max Franklin (a pen name for Richard Deming) and both were novelizations of two of those strong episodes.

One of the interesting things to note when reading these novels was how Franklin expands a one-hour-long story into enough pages to make up even a short novel. Death Race (1976) does this by adding additional scenes from the point-of-view of the bad guys and changing them from the Red Shirt villains they were in the episode into more 3-dimensional characters. The result is a still entertaining and action-packed story with a little more depth to it than the original episode.

The author also adds one additional gun battle--on TV, the climatic fight is in a hospital corridor. This fight still happens in the novel, but it soon followed by one more gun fight in an airport parking lot. This is obviously done to pad out the page count, but the additional action is worked expertly into the story, so it doesn't feel like padding at all.

One inexplicable thing about the paperback is the cover. The story involves the two partners transporting a mob boss's daughter to Los Angeles, encountering hitmen along the way. There are several legitimately exciting car chases and gun fights along the way, all of which would have made for great cover images. But the novel chooses to show us a picture of Hutch dramatically... drinking coffee? I don't get that at all. 

In Bounty Hunter (1977--also by Franklin), the author once again turns a one hour episode into a short-novel by adding more scenes told from the points-of-view of the bad guys, fleshing out their characterizations quite a bit. 

This one involves a dishonest lady bail bondsman and her ruthless bounty hunter murdering a jewel thief and then hiding the body and pulling off some jewel heists to cover their tracks, making it look like the thief is still alive. Their plan is full of flaws, but they aren't meant to be super-crooks. Rather they are thugs who allow greed to overcome what intelligence they have. The story moves along at a brisk pace, using TV Cop logic to move the plot along and bring it to a satisfying conclusion.

I read the novel with no memory of ever having seen the episode it was based upon, so I found it on TubiTV and watched it. Like its novelization, it's a pretty good story. Also, there's the added treat of seeing a minor character reading a copy of Marvel's Werewolf by Night.

I haven't read the other six in the Starsky & Hutch novelization series, but all were written by Max Franklin, who obviously had a talent for producing entertaining episode novelizations. So if you see one of his Starsky and Hutch novels in a used bookstore, give it a shot. 

Robots, Bad Weather and the Shenanigans of Teenagers

 

cover art by George Wilson

We learn in Magnus Robot Fighter #8 (November 1964--written & drawn by Russ Manning) that there was once a war between those who wanted a giant weather control tower built and those that didn't. 

The pro-weather control faction won and this seems to be a good thing, as this issue opens with a celebration of the 1,100th anniversary of that victory. The crowds are givin the opportunity to experience different weather conditions and just have fun.

Well, it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye--or rather, when an insane battle robot takes over the weather tower.

At first, no one knows exactly why the weather has gone wild, but Magnus soon has a chance to save a teenager from some rogue robots and gets an explanation.

The kid (named Howie) is one of four teenagers in a group called the Outsiders, which have been inspired by Magnus to work to be independently capable and not depend so much on robots. Ironically, while climbing down to see the site of the last battle between the pro- and anti-weather control factions, they unearth an old Battle Robot, which is programed to take over the weather control tower and use it to wreak destruction. The Outsiders make a valiant attempt to stop it with an avalanche, but it blasts its way through. Taking over both the weather tower and the the robots guarding it. Those were the robots trying to kill poor Howie before he could warn anyone.

There's a lot of detail in the plot to make it all work, but Manning gives us the exposition through an action-packed flashback that provides us all the information we need without slowing the story down at all. It's an example of expert graphic storytelling.

Storming the weather tower is now the thing to do. With Howie tagging along, Magnus out-fights guard robots and uses his intelligence to get past weather related obstacles (such as a literal acid rain). Once again, it is expert graphic storytelling. Manning provides us with superb art and with a hero who has to use both his physical abilities and his brains to win out.

Reaching the tower, Magnus finds the other three Outsiders, who snatch up rayguns from destroyed guard robots and give the Robot Fighter cover while he rips the head off the battle robot and saves the day. One of the Outsiders is wounded during the fighting, but 40th Century medical care saves his life.

A nice touch at the end is the Outsiders' willingness to take responsibility for letting loose the battle robot. But Magnus figures that would have happened eventually and they weren't to blame (an arguable point, since the boys had been rock-climbing in a restricted area), but the four boys had literally put their lives on the line to save the city, so we can give this to them. 

As is typical of Russ Manning's Magnus stories, this one is glorious. The art is fantastic and the story is solid and well-constructed.

In fact, let's spend another week with Magnus, looking at another issue that involves the Outsiders.

Cover Cavalcade

 

MARCH IS GIANT MONSTER MONTH!

A 1977 cover by Herb Trimpe.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Tales of the Texas Rangers: "Night Chase" 1/27/52

The Rangers pursue modern-day rustlers in this action-packed episode.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

From the Small Screen to the Printed Page, Part 1

 

TV tie-in novels still exist, of course, especially those for franchises such as Star Trek or Doctor Who. But prior to the days when DVDs and streaming videos allow us to watch our favorite shows whenever we want, just about every TV show had tie-in novels written. Everything from The Partridge Family to Mannix could be found on the paperback spinner racks. Sometimes they were original stories and sometimes they were expanded versions of specific episodes. In either case, they were a way to revisit the shows we loved when watching the actual episodes wasn't an option.

In the 1960s, the publisher Whitman produced a series of hardcover tie-in novels marketed at kids and young adults. I've written before about the two I read and loved as a kid myself. As an adult, I've occasionally run across a Whitman in a used book store and I always snatch it up and read it.

Actually, in the case of Hawaii Five-O: Top Secret (1969--written by Robert Sidney Bowen). I bought it from a fellow member of the Facebook Men's Adventure Paperbacks of the 20th Century group. But however I got my greedy hands on it, I've read and enjoyed it.

I'm always impressed by the quality of the Whitman books. There is never any indicaiton that they are writing down to their young audience. The stories are invariably well-crafted and, when violence is a legitimate part of the story being told, they don't shy away from dead bodies.

In fact, Top Secret starts with a dead body--a missing scientist who is found in the trunk of a wrecked car. He was murdered. But before he was murdered, he was tortured. The fear is that he was forced to spill technical information about a new secret weapon before he was killed.

The wrecked car was obviously meant to be crashed in a spot where it was unlikely to be found. But the bad guys are unlucky in this regard. The car is quickly found and there's even a witness who saw it racing out of a nearby neighborhood not long before it crashed.

McGarritt and the Five-O crew get to work. The ensuing story does have a few brief action scenes, but it's structured as a procedural, with McGarritt methodically and intelligently following up leads to find the killer and recover the secret information before it can be smuggled out of Hawaii. 

The villains are members of a Red Chinese spy ring and we get several chapters told from their point-of-view. This is to set up the fact that the leader of the ring treats his underlings like dogs (that's even one of his favorite insults) and depends on fear to keep them in line.

This turns out to be important. As he progresses with the investigation, McGarritt has to interview a low-level crook who has supposedly gone straight. Later, he must question a clever local crime boss. Finally, he verbally spars with the spy ring leader himself. McGarritt senses that he might be able to use the questions asked of the leader to turn the leader's underlings against him. 

In each case, McGarritt quickly assesses the other person and quickly comes up with a different interrogation tactic for each of them. In the case of the spy, McGarritt's questions are designed not to get answers from the bad guy, but to play on the fear he's seen in the eyes of one of the underlings.

The end result is an entertaining and engrossing police procedural, with the main character properly portrayed as a cop who uses his intelligence and experience to close his case. If you ever run across this one (or any of the Whitman hardcovers) in a used book store, do what I do and snatch it up. You'll be glad you did.

For Gosh Sake, Will Someone Buy Spider-Man a Plane Ticket?!!!?

 

In the previous issue of Marvel Team-Up, Spider-Man had to travel to South America. Despite the fact that he was working with a member of the Fantastic Four, he had to bum his own ride, cocooning himself to the bottom of a commercial airliner with his webbing. 

He ends that issue in Greece and with the necessity of getting to the Inhumans' Great Refuge in the Himalayas. And, as we see at the beginning of MTU #11 (July 1973), he has to hitchhike. Poor Peter. When Johnny Storm bailed out on him last issue, he couldn't even be bothered to use his FF-access to all sorts of high tech to score a ride for the webslinger.

This issue still features art by Jim Mooney. Gerry Conway had been writing this story arc, but this time he's credited with the plot, while Len Wein writing the script. 

Anyway, it sounds like I'm trashing the story, but I really don't intend that. Spidey having to hitchhike to the Great Refuge is a tad silly. Also, an upcoming "the story so far" flashback scene and a fight against henchmen when Spidey returns to the 23rd Century are both a little padded, showing that there probably wasn't enough of a story left to fill another issue. But Mooney's art is great and, overall, the plot indulges in entertaining Comic Book Science while getting the personalities of the various characters right. Despite its flaws, it accomplishes its purpose in being fun. 

Anyway, Spidey reaches the Great Refuge and explains to Black Bolt what's going on, including the important point that Zarrko's time bomb uses the same sort of radiation as does the Great Refuge's protective force field. As I mentioned, the flashback sequence accompanying Peter's explanation seems a little padded to me. But to be fair, the Comic Book Science involves is a tad convoluted. Maybe using up two pages to explain it all was unavoidable. On the other hand, two pages is 10% of the entire issue.

Black Bolt's brother Maximus, though still as Crazy-Pants as he usually is, is able to use the time bomb to slap together a time machine. Soon, Spider-Man and the Inhumans are zapped to the 23rd Century to rescue the imprisoned Avengers.

They actually appear several minutes before Spidey originally left at the beginning of the previous issue, with Zarrko only just arriving at Kang's headquarters. They follow him in and are soon locked in combat with a small army of henchmen. 

The ensuing fight is long enough to once again make me think that Len Wein was searching for ways to stretch out the remaining story to fill 20 pages, but it IS a good fight scene. Each of the key Inhumans and Spidey get a few panels to show off their own abilities and there's a really nice group shot as they polish off the last of the bad guys.

They confront Kang and Zarkko, which is when we find out what Kang's surprised reaction from the previous issue was for. Spidey and the Inhumans charge into the control room just moments after Chronologically-Earlier Spidey has fled. It doesn't really affect the story, but it's a fun moment.

There's some more fighting, the Avengers are freed and Zarkko is captured. Kang also appears to have been knocked out, but his armor turns out to be empty, allowing him to gloat a little via remote control as the story wraps up. 

But the cross-century invasion plans of both Kang and Zarkko are foiled. The heroes are zapped back to their own time and the day is saved.

I've just read back over what I've written and I am being nit-picky about some elements of the story. I admit that. But, by golly, there's a long tradition of comic book/science fiction fans being nit-picky--SO THERE! And despite whatever holes in logic might have been scattered about along the way, it's been a fun story arc and the world is a better place because it exists.

All the same, couldn't Johnny Storm have arranged a more comfortable ride for Spidey from Greece to the Great Refuge? C'mon,Johnny! You're better than that, man!

Next week, let's spend some time with Korak the Killer.

Cover Cavalcade

 

MARCH IS GIANT MONSTER MONTH!

The face of the monster is a little too cartoony for my tastes, but this is still overall a fun cover.

Art by Robert Fuqua.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Jack Benny: "Back from New York" 2/9/41

Jack returns to the show, but he's very, very jealous of the praise Herbert Marshall is getting from Marshall's stint as host the week before.

Listen to last week's "Friday's Favorite OTR" before listening to this one (if you haven't already), as many of the jokes this week are shout-outs to that previous episode. Click HERE to get that episode. 

Click HERE to listen or download this week's episode.

Bretwalda, Part 4

 

cover art by Marshall Frantz

Read/Watch 'em In Order #137

The May 13, 1939 issue of Argosy brought us the fourth Bretwalda story by Philip Ketchum. And it's another good one. We are one-third of the way through the series and so far it has been consistenly excellent.

"Paths of Conquest" brings us to the year 1066. And that makes the story interesting. The axe Bretwalda is meant to be used to save England. So far, the members of the Wilton family who have wielded it through the years have done so--saving the life of England's king or keeping a pro-English king on the throne of Norway to keep the Vikings in check. 

But now, we've reached the year William of Normandy invades England. The current owner of Bretwalda is Hugh Wilton, who is in France just before the invasion and who supports King Harold. So he is presumably meant to help save England from William.

But history is working against poor Hugh, isn't it? William will win the Battle of Hastings. Harold will die there with an arrow in his eye. We know this happens going into the tale. So how is the author going to pull a satisfying conclusion to this story out of his hat? Whoever wields Bretwalda is destined to win a great victory but also suffer a great defeat. If the defeat is the Norman victory at Hastings, what sort of victory can have any meaning?

Well, as the story opens, Hugh doesn't know what history has in store for England. He and a friend named Oliver are in France with a mission. They want to free a pro-Harold duke named Edward from William's dungeon. If Edward can get back to England in time (and there is still time at this point--Willaim's invasion fleet is still being assembled), he can rally his people and join Harold's army.

As events play out, Edward is freed but Hugh ends up in prison, where he is starved for several days before being sprung. He discovers that Edward is being "escorted" home by men who plan to kill him before he gets there. So, despite his weakened condition, Hugh takes Bretwalda and pursues Edward's party. The idea now is to take over the ship Edward will be boarding, kill the assassins, and sail home.

The main complication here is a young lady that Hugh has reason to care for--but whose father is a vassel of William and who might be in position to stop Hugh. The end result involves bringing her along on the rescue mission.

It's all great fun. As has been typical of the Bretwalda stories so far, Ketchum gives the various characters strong personalities and gives them believable motivations for their actions. There are several great action scenes, which includes the Battle of Hastings at the story's climax. And Ketchum does indeed pull a ending out of his hat that is both dramatically and emotionally satisfying.

You can read the story online HERE.