The Devil—With Wings

January 14, 2013
Carved of the adamantine granite from which so many pulp fiction heroes were hewn, Gary Forsythe (aka Akuma-no-Hané, or “The Devil with Wings”) toughs his way across Japanese-occupied Manchuria in Hubbard’s rousing pre-WWII adventure thriller, first published in the November 1937 issue of Five-Novels Monthly. Falsely charged with the murder of American engineer Bob Weston by the devious Capt. Ito Shinohari of Imperial Japanese Military Intelligence, Forsythe goes in search of Weston, who he believes is still alive and in possession of a secret that Shinohari desperately wants to cover up. Shootouts, aerial dogfights, and more than a few narrow escapes ensue. Hubbard shows his usual flare for fast action, colorful descriptions, and pulp vernacular (of a missed gunshot, he writes, “Death shrieked close beside Forsythe’s head and, cheated, went whining away”). There’s not much to the story besides the standard pulp thrills, but that’s enough to make this short novel an entertaining read.

March 1, 2013
Originally published in 1937, this rip-roarin' adventure finds American pilot Gary Forsythe, known to his Japanese adversaries as Akuma-no-Han' ( The Devil with Wings ), taking on his trickiest mission yet: spiriting out of Japan an American woman who believes he, Gary, murdered her brother. But the ambitious Captain Shinohari, Gary's nemesis and the man really responsible for the death of the woman's brother, will stop at nothing to bring down, once and for all, The Devil with Wings. Hubbard's knack for describing a character or location in as few words as possible allows him to pack the story with plenty of action without slowing it down for scene-setting or lengthy narrative passages. Another hit from a legitimate master of Golden Age pulp fiction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)