The Three Devils

Doc Savage (publication order; no omnibus) #135

by Kenneth Robeson (House Name), Lester Dent

A strange supernatural beast stalks the northern wilds. Can Doc put an end to its reign of terror-before a ruthless band of fanatics puts an end to Doc?

150 pages, Paperback

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

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unremarkable. Doc and his friends journey to Canada where a demon bear has been terrorizing a forest community, shutting down the pulp mills (there's a long explanation of why pulp is so vital, leading into a secondary explanation that this is why pulp magazines are shrinking — the paper's going to the war effort!). The workers are mostly Native American ancestry, so presumably they're all superstitious by nature. It's a trick of course; while I like the idea the villains have been planning it for decades, this raises the obvious question, why would Nazis have been sending sleeper agents into Canada back in 1924?
Confusingly Doc and his friends are framed for the murder of three Mounties, but there's never any account of the murder itself. That's because the end of one chapter got lost at the publisher's offices so it never made it into print.

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of the later Doc Savage adventures, when Lester Dent was forced to scale back the stories. What's strange is there were some good stories published in 1944 along with The Three Devils, but this story about a mystery in the Canadian backwoods felt rushed.

Most of Doc's crew is present but off-screen. Renny has some scenes, but he's not very effective, not like he will be in about a year with Cargo Unknown. And Doc is not a superman, able to solve every problem presented like he was in the prior entry in this double volume, The Man Who Shook the Earth, which was one of the first year's novels. What's really missing is exotic characters, like that earlier volume, where the character Biff is a Dick Tracy/Twilight Zone gruesome. I'm hopeful some of the other wartime Docs will offer better service.

[Andy53 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great story

[Ronald · Rating 3 out of 5]

read SOMETIME in 2000