I’m not sure if this represents muddled writing or faulty reading, but it certainly diverted my attention. On the first page of The Chase, Richard Hubler describes dawn on the southern California coast like this: “The sun reluctantly came out of the sea.” Doesn’t that sound like the sun is rising over the Pacific? Hubler (and his editor) must have known that couldn’t happen unless the Earth reversed its rotation. Maybe I’m just misinterpreting the passage. Anyway, I began the book wondering if the author had actually seen what he was describing.
The Chase by Richard G. Hubler. Coward-McCann (1952), 250 pp.
Twenty-year-old reporter Jennet Marvell has a tip that a reclusive doctor, Ralph Bock, is working on a cure for polio at a secluded house in the hills above her small coastal community. She asks John Talmadge, the paper’s owner and editor, to send her for an interview. When she arrives, she learns nothing about Bock’s work but does agree to mail a letter for him. Bock is murdered soon after Jennet leaves. At a hamburger stand on the way home, a truck plows into Jennet’s car. The driver, Big Martz, apologizes, then lifts the doctor’s letter. A follow-up altercation ends when a man calling himself only Marco punches out Martz. Marco offers Jennet a ride back to town. They pick up a hitch-hiker, Steve Chalmers, on the way. Jennet cannot imagine what will happen next.
This adventure story has the appropriate ingredients: a naive protagonist, plenty of suspicious characters, lots of plot twists, and a Hitchockian MacGuffin. There’s also quite a bit of violence. The first part of the book, which focuses on Jennet and her growing fears, sustains a high level of tension. Once the scope of the story expands and the nature of the bad guys becomes clear, the story works itself out in an expected manner. There are still action sequences and plot revelations, but the ultimate outcome is not in doubt. (In fairness, what happens to Jennet after the malefactors are defeated is surprising.) Readers who enjoy adventure novels are likely to enjoy this one. They may also sense in it a certain paranoid strain that is familiar today.
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