Daring Wings

Tim Murphy #1

by Graham M. Dean

[...]been a long day but I'll see you the first thing in the morning. Good night." "Good night, Tiny," replied Tim. After the mail flyer had lumbered up to his room, Tim went out to the hotel porch where he had laid the salvaged parts from the engine. He picked them up and lugged them up to his room. There, under the yellow light from a kerosene lamp, he strained over the broken bits. When he finally completed his minute examination, there was a grim smile on his lips. After breakfast with Lewis the next morning, Tim phoned the News office, and putting a bug in the managing editor's ear that he had stumbled onto a real clue, got permission to free lance for the rest of the day. Tim carefully wrapped up the engine parts and carried them to the field where he loaded them into his plane. Lewis was busy supervising operations for[...].

112 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1931

Reviews

[Tim Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daring Wings is the first in a four-book series for young boys published 90 years ago. Its hero is Tim Murphy, pilot extraordinaire (thus my 5-star rating) and intrepid reporter for the Atkinson (Kansas) News.

A pilot / news reporter? Well, yes, and an adult reader may need to suspend disbelief over some of the other content and scenes, but the book does move along at a snappy pace from his original opportunity to fly and report, his battling with weather, balky airplanes, a Mexican revolutionary, and, ultimately, the mysterious antagonist, the Sky Hawk.

Hey, anything that will inspire boys to fly, I’m happy to endorse. I’ll have to read the other three of the “Tim Murphy Series” (which I own and have sat idle for too long on my bookshelf).