The Sinister Shadow

All-New Wild Adventures of Doc Savage #14

by Kenneth Robeson

When millionaire Lamont Cranston and attorney Ham Brooks are kidnapped by gunmen driving a black hearse, it spells trouble for Doc Savage. Trouble with compound interest when Cranston’s personal lawyer is mysteriously murdered before he can consult with celebrated criminologist George Clarendon—who is secretly The Shadow! These strange events put the Man of Bronze and the Dark Avenger on a collision course that threatens to expose the deepest secrets of both supermen. The conflict intensifies when underworld figure Cliff Marsland is captured and shipped off to Doc’s secret Crime College! Will these legendary crimefighters join forces—or will the diabolical Funeral Director have the last laugh on Doc Savage and The Shadow?

Genres: Pulp, Mystery, Adventure, Fiction, Crime

494 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2015

About the author

Kenneth Robeson was the house name used by Street and Smith Publications as the author of their popular character Doc Savage and later The Avenger. Though most Doc Savage stories were written by the author Lester Dent, there were many others who contributed to the series, including:

William G. Bogart
Evelyn Coulson
Harold A. Davis
Lawrence Donovan
Alan Hathway
W. Ryerson Johnson

Lester Dent is usually considered to be the creator of Doc Savage. In the 1990s Philip José Farmer wrote a new Doc Savage adventure, but it was published under his own name and not by Robeson. Will Murray has since taken up the pseudonym and continued writing Doc Savage books as Robeson.

All 24 of the original stories featuring The Avenger were written by Paul Ernst, using the Robeson house name. In order to encourage sales Kenneth Robeson was credited on the cover of The Avenger magazine as "the creator of Doc Savage" even though Lester Dent had nothing to do with The Avenger series. In the 1970s, when the series was extended with 12 additional novels, Ron Goulart was hired to become Robeson.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the first prose meeting of Doc Savage and The Shadow; they meet up again in Murray's 2017 novel Empire of Doom. This one struck me as being much more of a Shadow book than a Doc Savage book; Doc and his crew virtually disappears for long stretches with little explanation. Also, only Doc and Monk have substantial parts to play. Ham's kidnapping kicks off the story and he's out of commission for most of the story, and Long Tom is around but contributes little. Renny and Johnnie are out of the country and Pat isn't mentioned. There's action on the 86th floor headquarters, the Hidalgo hanger, the crime college, and many of the cool gadgets appear as well, so that's cool. On the Shadow side we have Harry Vincent, George Clarendon, Lamont Cranston, Cardona and Weston, etc. One of the confusing threads is that the author seems to be unsure who the Shadow actually is, thereby obviously confusing the reader. It seems to be switch from chapter to chapter. (Speaking of chapters, whoever did the Roman numerals for the chapter headings made some seriously confused mistakes; we seem to skip about ten somewhere.) The team-up itself is okay if somewhat un-apocalyptic; there's an uncomfortable scene where Doc reads the Shadow's diaries, and he later performs reconstructive surgery on the Shadow when he seems to change identities again, but overall they mesh well enough against the Funeral Director baddie. Their different philosophies of how to treat criminals was entertaining. I did think the story to be overly long, well over twice the length of any other pair of Doc and Shadow stories, but hard core fans of either should find plenty of pulpy insider fun over which to pick nits.

[Evan Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am in awe of this book.

Pulp fans like me have been dreaming about a Doc/Shadow encounter for decades, and The Sinister Shadow is everything we could have hoped for.

We’ve known for a long time that Will Murray inherited the style and wit of Lester Dent (by my count, this is his 17th Doc Savage novel). This novel makes it clear he’s somehow in communication with the spirit of Walter Gibson as well. And Mr. Dent actually lends a hand from beyond the grave, because portions of this book are based on unused chapters and scenes from a Shadow novel he wrote before becoming the first “Kenneth Robeson.”

The action takes place early in the careers of both heroes, most likely in 1933 or ’34. The Shadow is still so mysterious that his very existence is in doubt. Doc and the gang know him only as a creepy voice on the radio. Faced with the notion that he’s a real being, they have no way to know which side of the law he’s on. Meanwhile, though the Shadow knows Doc is a good guy, trust and cooperation are not his strong suits.

This sets up a great dynamic in which Doc’s crew and the Shadow’s agents, as well as the two big cheeses themselves, are battling each other rather than focusing on their common foe, a death-obsessed mastermind called the Funeral Director.

Will Murray does a masterful job of integrating the worlds of the two series, and it works so well it’s a wonder Dent and Gibson never tried it themselves. Doc interacts with Commissioner Weston and Detective Joe Cardona. Ham Brooks meets Lamont Cranston. Monk Mayfair and Johnny Littlejohn tangle with Harry Vincent, Clyde Burke and Cliff Marsland. The Shadow makes an undercover visit to the 86th floor of the ESB, and Doc invades the Shadow’s sanctum. The Cobalt Club and the Crime College come into play, and we’re even treated to a dogfight between the autogyro and the gyroplane.

Yep, it’s all here. All the trappings from each series, interwoven into one BIG story that had me smiling from beginning to end. This is a book I’ll definitely be reading again.

Every pulp fan will want a copy of this.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the pulp magazine era of the 1930s-40s there were two names which stood above all others in the industry: Kenneth Robeson & Maxwell Grant. These names were synonymous with adventure, thrills & breath-taking escapes; these names were also synonymous with Doc Savage & The Shadow, respectively. But in the 80+ years since the creation of these house names and their corresponding characters, there was never a literary team-up between the two. In the same way that Superman & Batman operate in two very different methods, Doc Savage & the Shadow do as well. And the writing styles of Robeson (Lester Dent for the most part) & Grant (Walter Gibson more often then not) are just as different. but it took these four score years to being these two titans of the pulps into one single adventure. While the pair have appeared a couple of times in comic books together, these has never been a literary pairing until now. Taking unpublished material that Dent (not Gibson) wrote for an unfinished Shadow novel, Will Murray has cobbled together a fascinating encounter. Remaining true to both characters in one adventure would be challenging to say the least and Murray does rise to the occasion. Unfortunately, for a Doc Savage adventure there's too much of the Shadow and vice versa. While this does offer some excellent comparisons in how the two heroes operate, it did leave me a little (mind you, only a little) bit disappointed. The problem was that there were huge sections were Doc and his crew just disappeared from the pages of this Doc Savage adventure. That does give Shadow fans a nice treat, but it leaves Doc Savage fans a bit cheated, although as the book weighs in at over 450 pages (4 times as long as many of the original adventures) this is a small complaint indeed. Still, I can't quite give it 5 stars, so 4 will have to suffice. 

[Ben A · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was good, but based on its nature as an unused idea for a Shadow story it felt more like Doc and his crew were the guest stars in a Shadow novel rather than it being part of the Wild Adventures of Doc Savage series.

[Tasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent! For awhile there it turned into the Harry Vincent and Clyde Burke show. Not complaining.

[Phrodrick slowed his growing backlog · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bottom Line First:
Well in the tradition of the early 20th century Pulp novels, Doc Savage: The Sinister Shadow is an action adventure that joins two of the earliest pre-superheroes of the day. The ultimate man of adventure Doc Savage and the ultimate mystery man The Shadow. This story is a bit long about twice a typical Doc Savage book but it tells a complex story and a characters from both worlds need their moments, plus the time for the dastardly villain. Will Murray has written a decent addition to the library for both characters, but for as much credit the author earns in balancing the two characters, some is lost as plot devises suffer and the climactic scene has one or two too many requests for your suspended belief.

Bringing them together the Shadow and Doc Savage is not that farfetched. Both inhabited the same New York and came from the same publishing house. There is perhaps too much time spent on the slightly more fatal MO of the Shadow compared with Doc Savage. The notion that they could inhabit the same twon and know so little of each other is just one more stretch.

I came to this book having been a huge fan of the Kenneth Robeson Doc Savage books. Decades ago I had read about 70 of the 120 plus titles Lester Dent had published under the so called ‘house’ name of Kenneth Robeson. I was somewhat disappointed that this book leaves out 2 of Doc’s team and a third meber spends most of the book a helpless hostage. In fact this Doc suddenly hires some local talent to help him with some sleuthing, something unlikely with the ‘real ‘Doc.

I would detail some of my problems with plot points large and small but rather than risk spoilers, I will only say that they are there and too frequently for me to ignore.

Someone, The Funeral Director is killing some of the richest men in New York and they have made the double mistake of threatening The Shadow and kidnapping one of Doc Savages men. The Shadow has run into this villain in the original series and this volume will ties up some loose ends. For Doc this is a fairly small case for him, but made large by his personal and personnel stake in its resolution. The Shadow and Doc will not bond right away turning the plot into something of a triangular battle. Over all I think the Shadow gets in the most licks on Doc.

As befits the old pulp tradition there are regular fights and shoot ‘em ups, a fair number of what would have been hi tech gizmos in the 1920’s and more than a few shady locations and characters. It is mostly harmless fun and neither franchise suffer any real loss of face. Doc Savage: The Sinister Shadow is pretty much fan fiction and creativity is mostly in the idea of bringing the two franchises together. Neither is hurt much by the effort.

[Shawn Manning · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nicely done take on both Doc Savage and the The Shadow. The author impressively replicates the pacing,outlandish plots and characterizations of the original pulps. He also digs up some wonderful period appropriate terms. However, one thing that really irritated my is his use of the word "sepia", as a synonym for black. It's not. Trust me on this one.

My final note here is that oddly enough I've never had a problem with the Shadow killing, but this novel really gave me the horrors regarding the Doc Savage Crime College with performs surgery on unwilling subjects and erasing their memories.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Sinister Shadow is a "Doc Savage" novel by Will Murray writing as Kenneth Robeson. This book is one of the All-New Wild Adventures of Doc Savage and was written in 2015, about 80 years after the original Doc Savage books were written. For the most part, this book reads like the original books although it is four times as long as the Bantam reprints that I read as a teenager in the 60s and 70s. I enjoyed reading this one very much and I will probably read some more of the newer books when I can find them.
In this one, Doc Savage and his men are in the thick of it again. The action is classic Doc Savage, filled with good old-fashioned adventure and gadgets that always seem to be there when the hero needs them. You can relax and escape for a little while. A good read in the Doc Savage series.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Generalmente no leo novelas pero soy tan fan de La Sombra que me puse para esto. Desde luego, este es una historia de Doc Savage teniendo al vengador oscuro como invitado. Llena de enredos y recompensas. Me gustó el ritmo de cómo cada escena pasaba de aburrida a interesante y luego a emocionante. Si de alguna forma se hace un show de Doc Savage y la Sombra, deberían tener un show crossover cuya temporada completa este basada en este trabajo. La prosa es muy bien construida, pero como fue escrita en los años 30, mucho de los términos expirados me sacaron de la historia. Suerte que lo leí en Kindle y da una opcion de diccionario para esas situaciones. Lo recomiendo al que tenga paciencia, al que sabe que las cosas buenas les llegan a aquellos que saben esperar. 

[Daniel Davidson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two pulp heroes in action together

I'm not certain that Murray captured either style exactly, but he did catch that somewhat clunky pulp feeling pretty well. I thought he handled the two central characters fairly well. I don't recall reading of the Shadow's facial injuries before, and his ability to become other people certainly hints at his ability to cloud men's minds. Savage's special college has always been a grey issue for me, and the incident at the warehouse underlined just how intrusive that could be. Overall, it was a good break from some of the heavier stuff I've been reading lately.

[Brendan Mckillip · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not care for Will Murrayy’s portrayal of The Shadow. He made the character too much like a superhero/mystic force instead of the street level crime fighter that I remember from the original pulp novels of the 1930s and 1940s. And Walter Gibson never actually had the real Shadow going on the radio regularly to broadcast to the populace.

I also found Murray’s writing over-stuffed and needless convoluted. There are a number of scenes and characters that could have been cut with no impact to the overall story. It would have been a first step towards tightening up and bringing more focus to the story.

[Emmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! This book was a real knockout! So much going on and so thrilling! I'm of course a big fan of both the Shadow and especially Doc Savage, so a book where the two of them face off against each other was a match made in heaven! This book is nearly 500 pages, and while I normally avoid big books, I absolutely devoured this one! 5 out of 5, would read again. And I heard there's a second Shadow/Doc Savage crossover by Will Murray, so you bet your britches I'm going to read that one soon!

[Bud · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not often do authors bring together two popular heroes and get both characters done well, but Will Murray has done so here. He kept Doc Savage and The Shadow true to their characters. But he himself being a fan of both heroes, I should have known he would have done a great job. Also having read his writing in the Destroyer series as well, I should have known.

[Dan Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun Read. Interesting Read. Well Written Read.

[Orangereader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing fun story of these 2 pulp heroes. Loved it.

[Martin Schwartz · Rating 5 out of 5]

dream fulfilled

This is the best Doc Savage/Shadow novel I’ve read. All the characters are right, the plot was great. Better than Dent or Gibson ever did.

[Jeff J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A pulp novel featuring Doc Savage and The Shadow. Extortion by the Funeral Director.

[Larry Cohen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great adventure

The book was a fantastic crossover between Doc & the Shadow. Loved it! Wish Will Murray would write another one!

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Will Murray has taken up the reins of the Doc Savage series quite well with his “Wild Adventures.” He’s given Doc fans new adventures with a definite nostalgia spin, and he’s twisted Doc’s life into new horizons (that still make sense). The pairing of Doc and King Kong was very well done and I enjoyed it.

When I heard about the Doc Savage/Shadow crossover coming up, I was hopeful and excited. The pairing of the two biggest heroes of the age of pulps was something that I would have figured would have already been done. After all, the same company owned both characters. There was no reason not to do it.

Maybe the editors saw The Shadow as more of a gritty crime story venue and Doc Savage as more of a fantastic elements kind of guy. But I’ve read volumes of both series and I feel like there were a lot of similarities. There’s no doubt in my mind that the heroes were playing to the same audience.

Murray’s epic story of the two heroes meeting is truly that: epic. When I first got the book, I figured the story would veer more toward the Doc side of the story, or that the distinction between the two heroes would be more muted.

Instead, Murray blends both heroes equally, and plays them (and their aides) off of each other in interesting and exciting ways. There’s even a tonal shift between the Doc section of the book and that focusing on the Shadow. It’s like the story was written by two different authors, not the same guy, which is quite a feat to pull off.

Since I read the ebook version, I hadn’t really taken into consideration how long the novel was. I’d figured it was Doc-size, probably between 250-300 pages, the length Murray’s been writing them at lately—some of those like Skull Island and The Ice Genius. (The original Docs and Shadows were shorter, and got even more short as both series progressed.)

The Sinister Shadow clocks in at 500 pages and each one of those is filled with twists and turns, mysteries and machinations, and danger galore. Packed into those pages, Murray also leavens generous dollops of Doc and Shadow lore. Readers new to both series can feel free to dive right into this book and thoroughly understand both worlds.

In addition to all the lore and the exciting read, Murray also adds his own conjectures about the characters, their worlds, and the people who play in them. I was surprised and ecstatic to see one such revelation about a second-tier character(s) that makes perfect sense even if Walter B. Gibson (the Shadow’s primary raconteur) hadn’t thought of it.

So for you longtime fans of both series, here’s a love song just for you. And for you new to the heroes and haven’t ever gotten brave enough to dive in, here’s the perfect jumping-on point.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first Doc Savage/Shadow team-up was in DC Comics, in a 1988 four-part crossover, "The Conflagration Man." It didn't exactly set the world on fire, nor did subsequent comic book team-ups. Now we have the first official book version. I'm unfamiliar with Will Murray's "Wild Adventures" of Doc and his Amazing Five, but he does a superb job of imitating the pulp style. The repetitions are deliberate, the tin ear is actually perfectly tuned. As others have mentioned, he even shifts styles between the solo Doc portions and the solo Shadow portions of the story, imitating Walter Gibson quite well. The only misstep (other than, I think, an overuse of Doc's subsconscious trilling) is his continual belief that "sepia" means "black," rather than reddish-brown.

The story uses Doc as a means of, essentially, delving into some of the continuity issues of the early Shadow stories. I think Murray plays scrupulously fair. The story is set in the autumn of 1933, and, except for some foreshadowing (heh), sticks to the pulp world that Lester Dent and Walter Gibson had created up to that point. It explains -- no spoilers here -- why the Shadow stopped using the identity of George Clarendon (an alter ego that I remember really puzzled me when I read the paperback reprint of "The Death Tower" around 1970). There are a few nice metatextual touches, like a reference to the "monk's hood" version of The Shadow featured on some early pulp covers.

The story is not a world-threatening adventure; not a great deal is at stake, and the super-villain is interesting because, throughout, he's not quite infallible--and he turns out to be a legitimate former foe of The Shadow, although I was unaware of him. All in all, well done.

One interesting facet that Murray makes clear without making too much of it is that Doc Savage's assistants are men of very high abilities, physical and mental, while The Shadow is essentially dealing with very ordinary people whose main characteristics are courage and total devotion to the will of their mysterious master.

I should mention that Murray does a fine job of referencing the workings of early-30s technology, and I like references like one character using a "Continental style" phone where the receiver and mouthpiece are connected.

The cover is all right -- it does present a scene from the book, but Doc is presented in his usual ripped-shirt cover appearance even though he's not that way in the scene, and there's something off about The Shadow's left arm.

[Roger · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Shadow and Doc Savage are both pulp heroes whose exploits began being published in the nineteen thirties. Any fan of the old pulps has wanted to see a meeting of these two titans, so in a real sense The Sinister Shadow is a novel that has been anticipated for over three quarters of a century.

True, The Man of Bronze and the Master of Darkness have run across each other in the four color world-but comics have rarely done justice to either character. So the question is...does The Sinister Shadow hold up?

Oh my yes it does. The characterization afforded Doc, The Shadow, and their various associates is spot on. This book clocks in at 400+ pages and like the saying goes it starts with a bang and ends with a climax. Producing cover to cover action in a book this large is no small feat. I'd say the book is about 55% Shadow and 45% Doc but this mix really works quite well. (I assume this may lead to all new Shadow novels being written-I would welcome those.)

I am not as well versed in the chronology of The Shadow's adventures as I am in Doc Savage's, but from clues dropped in the book we know the action takes place after the Stock Market crash of 1929. The action is described as taking place in the Fall or autumn. These events have to take place after the events in The Land of Terror and before the events of The Phantom City. Therefore The Sinister Shadow is sandwiched in October or November of 1931, somewhere between The Czar of Fear and The Mystery on the Snow, as near as I can tell.

To borrow a phrase from Philip Jose Farmer I don't know what the weather was like on the day I saw my first Doc Savage adventure, but that day will always be bursting with a golden light. I think I was around nine or ten years old (this would be in 1974 or 1975.) It is so odd to be grateful to a fictional character, but there it is. Doc gave me hope in a hopeless time in my life. Reading a Doc Savage adventure (even a bad one, and let's be honest some of these are really bad) transports me to a very happy place, one I find harder and harder to get to as I get older.

So thanks Doc. For everything.

[Mike Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this novel -- it postulates the inevitable meeting between Doc Savage and the Shadow, both the prime stars of 1930s pulp fiction. Published by the same company, it's actually kind of funny that they never met back when they were first published. Nowadays, that sort of team-up would be inevitable. I liked this book, and the actual author Will Murray (Kenneth Robeson was the house name under which the original Doc Savage novels were published) did an admirable job. Hardly surprising since he's one of the top pulp scholars of our age. The book was as fast-moving and exciting as you would expect, with alternating sections focusing on Doc and his crew and then shifting to the Shadow and his agents. If you enjoy these characters, you will probably enjoy this book... and also be frustrated by some of the odd things that happen to keep the plot moving (such as not just putting a bullet in Doc's head when they had him temporarily overpowered). But, that sort of thing actually happened in the original pulps, so don't blame that sort of thing on Murray. This is a strong novel and I recommend it. I will probably read some of the other new pulp adventures penned by Murray.

[Rich Meyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad pulp adventure, but the teaming of the two big pulp stars of the thirties was a bit of a let down - I know it's Doc's series, and that it's a hard team-up to manage, but I just think he got the upper hand too easily. And, strangely, this is mostly a Shadow adventure instead of a Doc Savage story, not that that is a bad thing. There's a good section of the book where you're not sure who's fighting who or why, but the story itself was very enjoyable - I'm only a short way in reading the original Shadow pulps and Will Murray has the style down to a "T".

Let's face it: If you're a pulp fan, you're going to want to read this, and you should. The two mythos are merged pretty seamlessly, and you get immersed in those halcyon days without a lick o' trouble.

[Robert D · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was more of a Shadow story than a Doc Savage story. In fact the Doc Savage elements could have easily been removed and in some respects that would have been better as there were portions of the book which were quite the slog to get through. I feel the author was often hampered in trying to get the various personas from the two groups to interact in ways in line with their characters. And because each group had multiple members that meant several chapters of 'story' just giving something to do for the various team members.

[Dan Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it

[Ralph Carlson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great and fun read. Loved it.