The Devil Genghis, by Lester Dent writing as Kenneth Robeson, 1938.

The Devil Genghis is a novel in the long running Doc Savage pulp magazine series that ran from March 1933 to July 1947.

Doc Savage, aka Clark Savage, Jr., and his five aides, all of them with military rank going back to the Great War, go “from one end of the world to the other, looking for excitement and adventure, striving to help those who needed help, punishing those who deserved it” as stated in the very first installment of the series, The Man of Bronze.

While Doc’s “Fantastic Five” all fought in the Great War, direct references to the war are rare in the series. We hear about how the nicknames of Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett “Monk” Mayfair and Brigadier General Theodore Marley “Ham” Brooks go back to practical jokes they played on each other during the war. Major Thomas J. “Long Tom” Roberts got his nickname, at least in one version, after repelling an enemy attack by loading an old “Long Tom” cannon in a French village square with broken bottles and cutlery. Continue reading →