Isle of Gold, published in the August 1, 1939 issue of The Shadow Magazine, is simply made of Pure Fun.
Walter Gibson (who wrote 283 of the original Shadow novels using the house anme Maxwell Grant) often reused very general plot ideas, but always gave each iteration of that plot a unique twist or took it in a new, unexpected direction.
For instance, last week we took a look at the 1938 novel Vanished Treasure, which involved a search for a hidden treasure, with a gang of bad guys ready to swoop in and take the treasure once it's found.
Isle of Gold is about a search for a hidden treasure, with a gang of bad guys ready to swoop in and take the treasure once it's found.
Sound familar? But despite the identical premise used in each, the two novels could not be more different. The setting is the most obvious difference. The earlier novel is set in New York City and Long Island. Isle of Gold begins in the Big Apple, but soon shifts the action to Portland, Maine and a couple of remote islands off the coast of that city.
Even outside of the change in setting, the stories unfold in different ways. Both are enormously entertaining, but Isle of Gold edges out Vanished Treasure as the better of the two.
Two friends--Roy Orwin and Sid Bayne--are searching for an old treasure on a small island. The very pretty Catherine Dale turns out to own the island. A gangster named Clink Brackell plans to steal the treasure once its found. And a gang of smugglers is active nearby, though they don't at first seem to be involved in the treasure hunt at all.
Hovering over all of this is the Shadow, who wants to eventually round up all the bad guys while also protecting the several innocent people involved in the potentially violent proceedings.
Some of the elements that make Isle of Gold so good are:
1. Great use of the Shadow's agents. Harry Vincent, Burbank, Cliff Marsland, Hawkeye and the always epic Jericho Druke are all involved and all get to demonstrate their bravery, initiative and intelligence, especially during the final, extended action scene.
2. There are a number of things that happen that do not at first seem to make sense. Why was a gangster trying to see Catherine Dale before other gangsters kill him? Why was a sniper trying to kill Roy Orwin such a short time after Roy ends up in possession of a treasure map? How did the bad guys know he had the map? Why does the hermit living on the treasure island try to knife Roy to death and where did the hermit disappear to afterwards? What connects the smugglers to the treasure hunting shenanigans? But all these questions are gradually answered over the course of the novel, tying everything together into a tight and satisfying tale.
3. The finale takes up several chapters and involves the Shadow, his agents, the gangsters and the smugglers coming together in a series of violent clashes that take place on two islands and at sea. Catherine Dale is endangered, but turns out to be willing to trade shots with the bad guys along with the Shadow's agents. She needs to be rescued twice, but the bad judgement call that puts her back in danger after the first rescue is understandable from her perspective and doesn't distract from the overall strength of her presence in the novel. The action set piece is truly exciting, with unexpected twists coming quickly.
4. Several more twists involving character motivations and the smuggler's supposed leader are revealed during all this action. I thought I had one particular plot twist figured out, but I turned out to only be 33 1/3% correct.
5. I don't think Jericho Druke ever appears in a Shadow novel without at least one Crowning Moment of Awesome. His last-second rescue of another character during those final chapters is wonderful.
Vanished Treasure and Isle of Gold were reprinted together a few years ago in #131 of the Sanctum reprint series. They were chosen to go together because of the shared Treasure Hunt theme. But each novel can be enjoyed and appreciated on a unique level.
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