The Lone Ranger and The Secret of Thunder Mountain

Tom Quest #6

by Fran Striker

"The Secret of Thunder Mountain" (#6), utilizes Gulliver's Texas ranch as a setting- a ranch that Gulliver seems to spend precious little time on.
Here a cavern in a nearby peak is being utilized by ruthless killers who robbed an armored car of three million dollars in gold several years before. At Thunder Mountain the gang have high-powered electric furnaces to melt the gold and local rocks together to form an appearance of ore which they then hope to be able to "legitimately" reprocess without suspicion. But their huge electrical generators and furnaces produce a loud static interference on television and high-frequency radio bands, and in an effort to track down the location of this static in order to help out a friendly old man whose television reception is being ruined, Tom builds a radio direction-finder which is, incidentally, described with complete technical accuracy. Plotting on a map from two different locations the directional readings for the static, Tom finds that the two lines on his map meet at Thunder Mountain. Was the mine on Thunder Mountain haunted? Tom Quest had to go through an amazing adventure before he found out. This book contains some of Fran Striker's very best writing, from the descriptions of Hamilton Quest's somber victorian apartment in New York City to the killer waiting in the weeds of a vacant lot in Texas, sweating in the hot sun and slapping at a bug on his hand. The tone, detail, and pace of this book are unsurpassed.

Paperback

First published January 1, 1952

About the author

Fran Striker (born Francis Hamilton Striker) (August 19, 1903 – September 4, 1962) was an American writer for radio and comics, best known for creating The Lone Ranger, The Green Hornet, and Sgt. Preston of the Yukon

Series:
* The Lone Ranger Magazine & Romantic Western
* The Lone Ranger
* Tom Quest

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Secret of Thunder Mountain is the sixth of eight books in the Tom Quest series for young readers, which were written by Fran Striker (creator of The Lone Ranger, The Green Hornet, Sgt. Preston of the Yukon, etc.) from 1947-1955. This was the last of the books first published by Grosset & Dunlap as hardcovers with dust jackets; they were reprinted along with an additional pair of new books a few years later by the Clover imprint of McLaughlin Brothers with slick covers that had the pictures printed on them. (And a 49-cent price tag!) Tom is the son of scholar and explorer Hamilton Quest, who was lost for many years in South America, and the first couple of books detail how Tom and his friends tracked him down and rescued him. In this one, from 1952, Tom is on vacation in Texas at his friend Gulliver's ranch. Striker let his Lone Ranger era plotting take over a bit too much, and Tom gets involved with a gold-smuggling scheme after he volunteers to help a friend with his television reception problems. Tom is accompanied, as always, by his friends Whiz Walton, an unfortunately nicknamed reporter, and his gigantic Texan host Gulliver, who seems to be a bit larger than life by design. There's an unfortunate Indian stereotype in the person of cook Charlie Wind-Up, but he's one of the good guys at least. After much chasing about and plenty of adventures, they vanquish the bad guys, solve the mystery, fix the television, and are rescued at the last minute when Dad leads in the feds, after having cut a glass table top up and mailing it to the FBI with incriminating fingerprints on it. (That part seemed a little sketchy, but hey...) I didn't like this book as well as the first three, but it was still a fun and entertaining trip to the past.

[Brent · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this in a free giveaway shelf at my library. I kept/read it because when I opened the book up, a piece of paper fell out that had the top 40 songs in Nashville during a week in 1957.

[Sean Reinhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I’m reading this week: “The Secret of Thunder Mountain,” by Fran Striker. 📚🌧 A vintage adventure series book from 1952. Set in the deserts of the American Southwest, at the dawn of the nuclear era. A land of grit and desolation, where bold and wild characters search for rocks worth more than gold. Fran Striker’s journalistic writing style lends credence to the stark comic relief. The descriptions and dialogue surrounding the gigantic, colorful character Gulliver, bouncing over desert rocks in his customized jeep, are surprisingly entertaining. An unsung classic of the genre. 📚😀 #bookreview @hideflibrarian