Description
by L. Ron Hubbard
Johnny Brice is a hotheaded, hard-working “picture-chaser” for the newsreels. He loves to fly into the mouth of danger (whether forest fire, shipwreck or flood), get the story first, shoot it and send the film back fast so that it can be turned into newsreels for theatres all across America. He’s the best there ever was as a “top dog” reporter . . . up till the day he inadvertently saves the life of a golden-haired girl he pulls out of the ocean while covering a ship burning at sea.
The dame, or “Jinx,” as Brice calls her, seems to bring bad luck like a black cat under a ladder. She keeps Brice on his toes and waist-deep in trouble as they trek the globe from Idaho to the Orient, chasing pictures for the World News. Trouble is, no matter how hard he tries or how good the story, Johnny can’t seem to get good shots . . . nor can he shake the girl.
Publishers Weekly
Action junkies are most likely to embrace this latest reprint of one of Hubbard’s numerous pulp novellas, but even they may find the simplicity of plot and language, and some improbabilities a negative. Johnny Brice, a daredevil photojournalist from World News, is enjoying a brief moment of downtime when his assistant alerts him to a sensational breaking story. The Kalolo, the “biggest round-the-world ship,” has caught fire, claiming twenty lives. The survivors were picked up by another ship, and Brice’s boss contacted them by radio to buy their footage of the disaster; but to recover the film in time for their deadline, Brice must parachute from a biplane to the rescue vessel. The assignment gets geometrically more complicated when an attractive woman hitches a ride back to land on his airplane, so that a mysterious “they” won’t get her, starting a partnership that takes the pair around the world. There isn’t any character depth to speak of, but those in search of a quick thrill-packed read that makes few demands will find it here.
- 5×8
- 144 pages
- Galaxy Press
- Published: 03/12
