Doctor Who: The Eleventh Tiger

Past Doctor Adventures #66

by David A. McIntee

In interesting times, love can be a weakness, hatred an illusion, order chaos, and ten Tigers not enough. The TARDIS crew have seen many times. When they arrive in China in 1865, they find banditry, rebellion, and foreign oppression rife. Trying to maintain order are the British Empire and the Ten Tigers of Canton, the most respected martial arts masters in the world. There is more to the chaos than mere human violence and ambition. Can legends of ancient vengeance be coming true? Why does everyone Ian meets already know who he is? The Doctor has his suspicions, but he is occupied by challenges of his own. Sometimes the greatest danger is not from the enemy, but from the heart...

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Fiction, Media Tie In, Doctors, China, Historical Fiction

288 pages, Paperback

First published June 9, 2004

About the author

David A. McIntee was a British author who specialised in writing spin-offs and nonfiction commentaries for Doctor Who and other British and American science-fiction franchises.

Reviews

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

The First Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki arrive in China in 1865 where they find banditry, rebellion, and foreign oppression rife.

The historical really captures the Hartnell era perfectly, in both in setting and the characters.
It’s one of my favourite Past Doctor Adventures.

[Andy Simmons · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another excellent Dr Who novel. Unlike some, this book featured the characters as (I believe) they would have acted. This is so often an issue with the earlier Dr Who stories I've read where the authors don't appear to know the older black and white Hartnell are very well.

Mr McIntee certainly captured the feeling and flavour of 19th Century China and the plot is very good. I'm afraid that I can't comment on his inclusion of Chinese literary/historical characters as I'm not familiar with them at all but judging by his treatment of the characters I do know, I have no doubt that they were well represented. I know I found them interesting and engaging. I know that at least one other reviewer has researched these characters after reading this book and I shall do so as well.

My one criticism is that the British army seemed a little too "nice"; more like the jolly good chaps of the Empire that we imagined than (I suspect) the "bullies" that they were. But then this is a Dr Who novel not a historical account. Plus, I have to admit liking the Brits that were presented in detail. Lastly, I was very impressed with the antagonists and their "science/technology"; it struck me as a blend of the Whovian and the Lovecraftian.

So, for me this is a definite 5 star book.

[Frank Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really good one! I was suss on the description but was pleasantly surprised by the story. It's a very clever and fun First Doctor adventure. The characters are all written the way they should be and they all get significant roles in this one. The timey wimey stuff is really good and packs a few fun surprises. This story has a plot that suits the First Doctor series perfectly.

[Allen]

I do see David’s passion for writing Historical Stories in Doctor Who, It really does shows in this book but to me, it does take a while for this to happen but it is cool with the First Doctor doing Kung Fu.

[Noel Thingvall · Rating 4 out of 5]

For all McIntee's talk about this basically being the Doctor wandering into a Golden Harvest martial arts flick, there isn't much martial arts action, and when it appears, it's pretty clumsily executed. That's really my only criticism though as its otherwise a splendid read, with tons of wonderfully inventive twists throughout, great use of the historical setting and the iconic character of Wong Fei Hung, and marvelous turns for the cast to take. The Doctor becoming a martial arts legend, the mystery of the two Ians, with Barbara trying to sort it all out. Great little builds to Viki, her past, and how her dynamic with the others differs from Susan. It's a really solid, exciting book, full of humor and thrills.

[Emilija · Rating 3 out of 5]

2025 52 Book Challenge - Lunar New Year Mini Challenge - 1) Set In A Country That Celebrates Lunar New Year

I think this was the most complicated Doctor Who book that I've ever read. It was good, and it held my attention, and I enjoyed it, but it also took a lot of thinking to follow the plot. And in the end, as detailed and complicated as the plot was, the enemy at the end was very confusing, I couldn't quite figure out who they were.

I did love the bit where the Doctor was fighting, I thought that was well done.

[Lawrence · Rating 2 out of 5]

https://gnomeship.blogspot.com/2021/0...

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

When the TARDIS materializes in China in 1865, the Doctor and his companions arrive in a land plagued by foreign occupation and a shadowy threat. Mistaken for the commander of the local garrison of British troops, Ian is attacked by the patrons of a local restaurant. As he recovers from his injuries, the Doctor, Barbara, and Vicki discover that an unknown group has infiltrated the Black Flag militia and is using the organization to their own mysterious ends. With their forces seizing various locations and their men ordered to kill scholars and teachers, the Doctor begins to suspect that the threat before him may not be of this world — and is one that knows more about him than he does about it.

David McIntee's book is an interesting entry in the Past Doctor Adventures series. Focused on the First Doctor and one of his teams of companions, it evokes nicely the sort of slow-developing (for better and for worse) history-centric adventure that was common to the series at that time. McIntee's characterization of the crew is particularly strong, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that the locals the encounter are featured more prominently in the narrative. What makes the book stand out, though, is McIntee's subtle employment of an antagonist from later in the televised series, one whom a subsequent regeneration of the Doctor defeated hundreds of years prior to the events in his book. It's a neat twist, and one that manages to avoid any of the logic-twisting issues that so often come up in time travel stories premised on such a scenario. The book cemented for me McIntee's status as my favorite author of Doctor Who novels, and I plan on reading all of his other contributions to the franchise as soon as I can get my hands on them.

[Hidekisohma · Rating 1 out of 5]

First and foremost, i have to say that i LOVE the first doctor. Hartnell is my favorite out of all the doctors. Not only that but i love asian culture. this book should have been RIGHT up my alley. That's why it pains me to say that this book was absolutely awful.

I honestly don't even know where to begin with this, but i'll try.

So first of all, the book was boring. it was very VERY boring. I really didn't feel like there were any stakes at all. I'm not even certain WHY the doctor and crew stayed there and hung out with the people in this story.

Normally there's a reason why the crew can't just peace out in the tardis when things go bad, but there's a good chunk of book when ian's healed from beating and up and barbara/vicki are captured and they just don't leave. they just stick around for reasons that are not understood to me. i may have missed something but my brain zoned out too much.

Honestly, i do not think i have ever zoned out more in a who novel in my life. I had so much trouble focusing on this book i actually had to stop and try harder to keep the focus.

The story i THINK is that these evil aliens wanted to use these chinese people by taking over their bodies with downloaded memories of older chinese people and hide in their bodies as well and then take over the world with clay soldiers brought to life? the climax was VERY confusing and made little to no sense.

Usually when a who novel is bad, i can at least say, well, at least the characters acted as they should. However, this was only true for the doctor. Barbara and Ian were SO out of character, SO awful, that i refuse to believe they're the same characters.

Normally, when dealing with these two, there's an underlying sense of romance. an unspoken connection between the two of them that they care a lot about each other. BUT, if something happened to either of them, they would move on. There have been several books and episodes where they think the other is dead, grieve, and then move on. However, in THIS book, you wouldn't know that as the two of them act as if without them they couldn't possibly go on. Ian gets beat up and Barbara is at a loss of what to do, and when Barbara is captured and the bad guy's like "yeah, kill this guy and we'll free barbara" (who ian thinks is a version of himself from the future) he's like "yeah, okay" and shoots him. luckily the doc replaced gun with blanks beforehand, but without the doc's intervention, he would have effectively murdered himself. (We then learn that Ian was wrong about that and he wasn't actually him, but his great grandfather. So yes, this author had Ian effectively almost murder his great grandfather because someone kidnapped barbara)

These two are NOT Ian and Barbara. I don't know WHO David thought he was writing for, but it feels more like Bella and Edward than Ian and Barbara. and it was awful.

Oh yeah, wasn't Vicki in the book? Pff. you'd never know it as she doesn't even really DO anything. until she's captured her role in the book is to talk to a guy a few times. Very exciting. then she's captured, escapes, and then does more nothing. i can't tell whether david didn't like vicki or just had no idea what to do with her. if that was the case, just have the book with just ian and barbara WITHOUT vicki. (and don't say that you can't have a book with just ian and barbara timeline wise because "Venusian Lullaby" did it)

Speaking of characters, you want to hear confusing? One of the characters in the book is named "Major Chesterton" and considering that the doc always calls ian "chesterton" the book gets really REALLY confusing when you're trying to figure out whose scene you're on. oh. and the author tacks on that major chesterton has partial amnesia from a brain injury so the audience can go "oooohhhh IS that really ian in the future?" but then some random guy's like "no, his name is bill" and that wraps up that mystery like 250 pages in.

every other character blends together for me and i have no idea who people are. they kill a guy named Jiang and i'm like "oh no.....not THAT guy." they try to introduce so many characters and they all do basically nothing.

The villains were confusing, non-descript and lame and they were some kind of...energy people? it's really hard to determine exactly what they were because my brain had already melted by this point in the book as i was just trying to get to the end.

Speaking of the end, if you were hoping for a satisfying climax or epilogue, too bad. you get neither. the doc doesn't save the day as it's some guys named Logan and Fei-hung who really do it. also there's really no epilogue. like at all. the book kind of just ends with Fake Ian and Fake Barbara being out of character.

At least with other bad hartnell books, i at least understood the plot. While i strongly dislike the salem book, at LEAST all the characters were involved, they all had their things to do, and they were all in character. Yeah it was mean spirited and depressing, but it MADE SENSE. This... i don't even know what to say about this other than it was (except for doc) out of character, boring, and non-sensical. The stakes felt almost non-existant and i honestly don't even know really what happened at the end.

This actually IS the worst who book i have read. and that's EXTREMELY disappointing. the only saving grace was the 1st doctor was in character and a bit of his dialogue was okay. The rest was boring, terrible, out of character, and it talked down to you.

1.5 out of 5 rounded down to a 1.

[Ffion Horrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Eleventh Tiger is an amazing book which captures the spirit of the first doctor's era incredibly well. The book is composed of 6 chapters, each representing what would be a TV episode and the pacing is consistent throughout (which unlike other PDAs means the ending isn't rushed). The setting of 19th century China is beautifully explored, with the setting of the story during yuelaan jit setting the tone of the novel.

The characters are written well, with McIntee perfectly capturing the Doctor by presenting him as a crafty but respectable (with a hidden ability of fighting). Barbara and Ian are written very well, which their relationship being a major sub-plot of the novel, which I personally think is handled brilliantly (but definitely more explicitly than in the TV show). Vicki is quite forgettable in the novel, but is still portrayed in a similar light as her TV counterpart. The historical characters are also intriguing and developed very well, though the British army as presented in a predominantly positive and friendly light (unlike what is likely historically accurate)

I personally enjoyed all the plots in the book. As mentioned above I loved the Ian and Barbara relationship subplot, and the fact that it was explored from both of their perspectives in depth. I also found the two Chestertons arc to be very intriguing, although I did figure it out about a third of the way in. I loved the idea of the ghosts and the stone-tapes and felt that the foreshadowing this give really helped strengthen the ending. The main plot point of the mystery of the abbot was interesting and developed at a steady pace and the conclusion of his story arch was very satisfying.

I absolutely adored this book, being one of two of my favourite PDAs/VMAs I have read (alongside The Witch Hunters). The characters are all interesting and well developed and all of the major plot points feel thoroughly explored. The tone of the book is fantastic throughout, hitting all the emotions at different parts throughout the book, with the ending being such a feel-good sweet moment that has you smiling.

[Michael Battaglia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes a TARDIS crew is so well defined that it's enough for the author to simply dump them in a setting, set up a threat and add just enough period detail to keep it feeling authentic and let the cast run their paces on auto-pilot through said scenario. It's almost like watching a jazz band led by a crotchety old man who says "mm?" a lot. Even when you know the results are going to be comfortable and predictable, the principles involved are such old friends and their routines so beloved that it hardly seems to matter. If you're going to give me the First Doctor, Ian and Barbara, I don't want rampant experimentation, I want the best experience that a facsimile of a 1960s black and white not heavily budgeted British serial can give me. And by golly, we have it.

Maybe we don't get the low budget feel enough, but McIntee certainly does his best to give us the full experience for our entrance fee. The TARDIS crew find themselves dumped in 1865ish China, still under British rule and a bit wanton in parts, with bandits romping about and a general sense of uneasy disorder occasionally gripping the populace, forcing everyone to learn martial arts. Just like history teaches us. What history doesn't teach us is that the people were threatened by apparent reincarnations of the first Chinese emperor and his lackeys and it's up to a bunch of schoolteachers to save the day.

Except Ian gets mistaken for a local British major about twenty pages in and as a result gets the stuffing beaten out of him before anyone can do anything. Whoops! Time for a turn of the century Eastern medical drama!

McIntee has a nice feel for both eras, not only the historical but the era of the show as well. He gets bonus points for picking a section of history that isn't too well explored by the show and manages to include a famous Chinese doctor that isn't well recorded by history, meaning he can put his own stamp on the guy's personality while giving us the requisite "famous but not too famous" figure the Doctor can talk shop with and add to his autograph book. He has a not bad feel for characters either, remembering that the old historicals were often populated with lots of locals and he throws in the stories of bandits and assistants and monks and lovers and soldiers. Some of the Chinese characters start to blend together for me after a while, mostly due to unfamiliarity with naming conventions (which probably speaks more about my inability to close any cultural gap as opposed to anything the author did wrong), but does his best to bring across the "life as they know it" feel, giving us the full six episode arc, where we immerse ourselves and just as we're getting comfortable, we move on.

It winds up being quite readable and wildly entertaining, which is good because he lets all the good times and history replace the plot. The threat of the emperor (or whatever is controlling him) seems to rear up whenever the book feels like taking a break from depicting the Doctor and company puttering around and at no point does this ever feel like a dire threat that they must race against time to stop. The book doesn't even bother to define the threat that closely, and while it gets points for keeping an obvious alien presence at arm's length, the aliens don't seem to fight the Doctor as much as decide to give up and their motivations are completely lost beyond "Duh, because we can." It feels like he didn't feel like writing a proper climax and just wanted to skip to the feel good parting of an ending that all the proper episodes had, where the regulars pile into the tiny box and everyone marvels at how not only they fit but how the magic box disappears into thin yet noisy air.

This complete lack of anything resembling tension should make the book fall completely flat, but it doesn't. McIntee mostly gets away with this by tossing in so many distractions with intriguing paths that it hardly matters that none of them line up to go anywhere near the main plot. Is Major Chesterton a future version of Ian that he may be forced to kill? Thankfully Possible Future Ian got a bump on his head and can't remember much (especially pesky stuff like the magic teleporting box and the fetching schoolteacher you used to travel with), leading to pages and pages of speculation. Meanwhile the book has a strange fixation with the concept of Barbara and Ian as a couple, taking something that was always hushed and implied on the level of Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn and shoving it right out into the open. They do everything but call each other "darling" and many of Barbara's scenes focus on how she wants to see Ian's sweet, sweet face and fall into his waiting arms. He's a bit more stoic but along the same lines. I don't have any inherent problem with this, if any TARDIS couple might as well be romantic it's this one and they make a better theoretical married couple than some actual married couples who have traveled in the blue box, but to have it brought up so often like they're lovestruck teenagers, especially when none of the other books featuring them harp on it to this degree makes it somewhat disconcerting. Especially if you're somehow blissfully unaware of decades of fan speculation on this matter. It does lead to one interesting moment toward the end of all this, which makes you wonder if that was the whole point of this book being written.

Meanwhile, Vicki is about as useless as Susan, but with far less screaming. Which isn't Vicki's MO at all (in the show she was more useful than Susan, with the added bonus of less screaming) but for some reason it seems that McIntee didn't quite know what to do with her. Barbara does think about slapping her at one point, which is amusing in itself considering she's a teacher and generally naturally unflappable.

Still, there's time for jokes, some of which are funny (Ian's reaction to the truth about Major Chesterton) and some that are not (at one point they quote "Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting" so straightfaced I can't tell if the characters or the author are being ironic), but what there is strangely not time for is a resolution that makes sense. Yet it's all so predictably entertaining that it goes down easy even when you can write the pages like you have a time machine (hm, they walked into a room full of soldier statues . . . will they come to life?) and in the midst of watching old favorites do what they do best (I should not neglect to say, despite all else I've criticized, his Hartnell is spot on which is a big plus) I found I just didn't care about the other niggling details (I wonder if the threat was meant to be brought back for a sequel, so glaring is that omission). I may not care about this book in a month (especially with a shelf of Hartnell DVDs to fall back on) but for two hundred eighty pages it put me back in the era again and did it well and while I want to ask for more than that, I find that it's oddly fine just the way it is.

[Steven Andreyechen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a real page turner for me. I felt myself flying through it and only putting the book down because I had to.

There is a very fun mystery at the centre of this book though there is only so many directions it can go in. By the time it is revealed the reader has probably figured it out.

Where the book absolutely shines though is in its characters, there is an incredible depth given to Ian and Barbara. This book deepens their relationship and show it from both of their perspectives.

I cannot say the same for Vicki who I think is underused, though there are some fun moments.

The world building is luscious and as far as I can tell there is little in the way of inaccuracies.

Overall this was a very good book, that I highly recommend, just good luck finding a copy.

[Jodi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ich mag den ersten Doktor sehr gerne - er hat so etwas Klassisches an sich. Also habe ich mich auch mal an Büchern mit ihm gewagt und hatte dabei ebenfalls meinen Spass.

McIntee schafft es, den ersten Doktor auch auf Papier aufleben zu lassen. Jedes Mal, wenn er sprach, hörte und sah ich William Hartnell vor mir. Vor allem die Sprechweise des Doctor hat der Autor herrlich gut getroffen.

Aber auch die Geschichte an und für sich ist sehr "doctor who"-ig. Von A bis Z so aufgebaut, wie die typischen Folgen auch heute noch funktionieren. Man merkt also, dass McIntee Erfahrung mit dieser Serie hat und sein Können richtig einsetzt.

Somit eine Freude für jeden Fan der Serie.

[John Wilson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I sometimes get the feeling that McIntee is less concerned with telling an interesting story, and instead wants the reader to be impressed by all the homework and research he's done for a book.

[Dan Hodges · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable romp through 19th-century China with a good mix of history and fantastical action. Plays with some interesting ideas, namely the idea of two Ians, and explores Chinese history and mythology in creative ways. It's always fun seeing a classic Doctor taken to times and places they never would've done at the time and the 1st Doctor doing kung-fu is certainly something that could never happen outside of the expanded universe. If you read enough of these 1st Doctor books, though, it does become tiresome how often Barbara is kidnapped and Ian, in a rage, must seek to rescue her. We all know that they were obviously in love, but every bit of expanded fiction seems to explore the idea as if for the very first time.

[Angela · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought it was weird to go back and read about the Seventh Doctor as a fan of Nine and Ten--but it's nothing compared to going back and reading about the First. In The Eleventh Tiger we have First Doctor, along with companions Ian, Barbara, and Vicki, showing up in 19th century China. Since the plot wasn't particularly noteworthy as Doctor Who plots go, the interest for me here was seeing One do his thing, and seeing what his Companions were like. Having just watched some First Doctor episodes as well, it seemed like the author got the characters down fairly well. So it was fun to just see all of that, including One's mannerisms and how he responded to situations, what was different between him and later incarnations, and what was the same. What felt familiar to me was certainly his emphasis on thinking his way out of situations versus using force, and occasional tiny glimmers of the regret at losing Susan that I rather suspect lay the first bits of groundwork for the hardcore loneliness we see the Doctor experiencing in the era of Nine and Ten. What felt different was that One is a much craftier incarnation, and very fond of being inscrutable and mysterious, hardly giving away any hint of what he has in mind. It's quite the switch from the garrulous Ten who frequently technobabbles to distract the opposition from what he's up to.

Plotwise, though... eh. There's spooky extraterrestrial stuff going on, lots of going "grr" between the Chinese characters and the British, and some fairly standard martial-arts-flick treatments of, well, martial arts. It started off kind of interesting, dropping hints about Chinese mythology and how that was tying into the situation at hand, but then the book took a hard turn towards the cheese. I was kind of willing to go along with the idea of old, frail-looking One in an actual fight--because, as a few characters pointed out, there were martial arts masters older than the Doctor--because he used his wits to get through it quickly, and becuase his opponent was an idiot. ;) However, when the story very deliberately set up a few events just so the Doctor, Ian, and Barbara could exchange dialogue quoting the very obvious old song lyrics that come to mind when one thinks of cheesy martial arts... well. I stopped taking the book at all seriously at that point, which let me enjoy it a bit more once my expectations had been properly adjusted. But it wasn't nearly as fun as the more serious Doctor stories I've read or watched, so far.

Though I will give it props for one thing--while time paradoxes are pretty standard in any time travel story and doubly so for a Doctor one, this one nevertheless managed to handle the time paradox subplot in a mildly surprising and at least initially unexpected way. So that part is fun. And I have to admit that I also giggled at the whole idea of Ian being the primary handsome dashing hero in a story, because after seeing the First Doctor episodes and hearing LJ user spazzkat joke about Ian and his ACTION SWEATER!, I kept envisioning that every time he was in a scene. Hee. So, overall, two and a half stars.

[David Layton · Rating 4 out of 5]

McIntee, like Bulis, is one of the reliable Doctor Who authors. His stories are well-paced, easy to read, and not terribly demanding. "The Eleventh Tiger" has all of these elements. Brilliant it is not. However, it does justice to the Doctor Who we remember. McIntee has written a story that could very well have been produced as a TV serial in 1964, with only a few things not doable at that time (these being the savage beating of Ian early in the book, and the love interest between Ian and Barbara, with perhaps the electro-information grid in the tomb at the end.) There are a couple of quibbles I have with it. The first is that the nature of villains is not really explained all that well. There seems to be a hint or two that we are dealing with beings very like the Mandragora helix, but somehow none of this is made explicit. Another is that the "stone tape" idea is completely naff, providing a thoroughly inadequate explanation for why the first emporer's personality is transferred to the abbot. A third is McIntee's variable quality prose, which runs from insightful and even poetic at some points to awkward and ponderous at others. Not to dwell on the negatives, though, I will end by saying that on the whole it was an enjoyable read. McIntee wisely refrains from going far beyond believability into Hong Kong movie territory; the fights in the novel are realistic. His major characters are not stereotypes or purely stock melodrama, but have genuinely human reactions.

[Travis · Rating 4 out of 5]

An odd mix of story elements resuls in a decent read, but an uneven one. Would have worked better as a straight historical adventure, as the sci-fi elements feel a bit tacked on, like they were added to pad the story out to novel length.

The case of mistaken identity as well as the idea of trying to blend Doctor Who and hong kong kung fu movies were entertaining to stand on their own and were a lot of fun.
The kung-fu duel featuring the elderly First Doctor is worth the price of the book alone.

David Mcintee is reliable as a writer of Doctor Who. He usually provides a good adventure, as well as a nice use of history. This isn't his best, but is still a fun read.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1893226.html



tale of Vicki, Ian and Barbara in China in the 1860s, encountering the Ten Tigers (of whom I had not previously heard, but a quick Google put me right) and an alien menace trying to take over Earth history through revenants and the terracotta soldiers. Lots of vivid imagery, and good imaginative backstory for Ian, Barbara and Vicki. Due to brain-deadness I missed the identity of the villain until the author put me right. But otherwise this is one of the best First Doctor novels.

[Avarill · Rating 2 out of 5]

A solid story, though it starts out a bit slow. It's also probably best appreciated by aficionados of Chinese martial arts and/or those familiar with Fei-Hung Wong. It took me about a third of the book to realize that some of the central characters were historical figures. It's too bad that Ian's paradox seemed less engaging than it should have been. Nonetheless, it's a fun romp that gets steadily more interesting as things move along. There are a lot of highlights, including and extra dollop of Ian - Barbara romance and kung-fu fighting by an unlikely combatant.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Doctor Who" does Kung-Fu...literally! A resplendent 19th century setting, the Hartnell Doctor kicking butt, the Ian/Barbara romance flowering...what more could you want from a 1st-Doctor-era novel? My only complaint is that the issue of the two Chestertons feels a bit dragged out...but that's a minor quibble.

[Tim Dunn · Rating 3 out of 5]

So many Doctor Who books (and I have all the new ones)....a written review is unnecessary for them all.

[Ivana Richards · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable historical with an unnamed alien enemy. Unfortunately , yet again Barbara's only function is to get kidnapped. Certainly one of the better 1st Doc novels.