Foghorns

Tod Moran series #7

by Howard Pease

Subtitled "A Story of the San Fransisco Waterfront". Originaly published 1937.The seventh in the Tod Morna Mysteries Series, this is structurally similar to all of the others in theme and style, but practically different in that the Araby never leaves port.

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1942

About the author

Howard Pease was an American writer of adventure stories from Stockton, California. Most of his stories revolved around a young protagonist, Joseph Todhunter ("Tod") Moran, who shipped out on tramp freighters during the interwar years.
Pease received two literary awards during his lifetime. In 1944, he received the California Commonwealth Book Award for his novel Thunderbolt House (reprinted by Scholastic as Mystery at Thunderbolt House, published that year, and in 1946 he was awarded the Children's Book Award from the Children's Book Committee at Bank Street College of Education "for a book that deals realistically with problems in the child's world" for his novel Heart of Danger.

Reviews

[Michael McCue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Howard Pease was one of my father's favorite authors. I read many of his books as a boy and enjoyed them too. Pease felt that books for younger adults readers should not be dumbed down. He also wanted his books to be full of excitement and adventure and to tell of exotic places. Foghorns is set on the San Francisco waterfront in the 1930s. Eighteen year old Greg Richards wants to go to sea to earn money for college. But a longshoreman's strike is keeping the freighters in port and no shipboard jobs are to be had. When a stranger offers to sell Greg a seaman's papers and an assignment on a freighter he takes it. But the stranger's offer is not well meaning and somebody wants to keep the steamer Araby from leaving port. What adventures and danger will follow? Who on the ship is honest and who can't be trusted. The author even throws in a secret code used. by the elements who want sabotage the Araby's parent company. 2I could not solve the code but other readers might. Even though this book was written nearly ninety years ago it has much to offer younger and older readers.