Have Trenchcoat - Will Travel and Others: A Novel of Suspense and Three Short Stories - Hardcover

E.E. "Doc" Smith

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0911682333 ISBN 13: 9780911682335

Publisher: Advent, 2001

Synopsis

This book is not science fiction. The disclaimer is necessary because the late Edward Elmer "Doc" Smith made his literary name in writing science fiction. As Lloyd Eshbach explains in his Introduction, Doc was one of the earliest writers of interstellar and intergalactic adventure stories, fondly referred to as "space opera." His Skylark novels began to appear in the science fiction magazines in 1928, followed by the epic Lensman series starting in 1937. Eshbach's Fantasy Press reprinted these novels in hard covers soon after World War II; many mass market paperback editions followed in later years.... Doc called Have Trenchcoat - Will Travel a "whodunit," but it is really more of a "howdunit." Ace private investigator Matyas "Ty" Nagy knows practically from the start who the villain is; the problem is to figure out just what he did and track him down. Vanessa Vukovich - a beautiful tigress of a woman - hires Ty to find her fugitive husband. She discovers in Ty a tiger to match her own spirit. They quickly fall in love, making it all the more urgent to locate Alex Vukovich, so she can divorce him. It soon transpires that Vanessa may already be a widow - but it may be impossible to prove it.... The three shorter stories are "Motorsickle Cop," an adventure story of the Newvadia highway patrol, reflecting Doc's life-long interest in biking; "Nester of the Caramints," a Western set near the end of the frontier days; and "Full-Time Nurse," a light romance which may have been inspired by Doc's own experiences with heart-lung surgery.

About this edition

• Publisher: Advent
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0911682333
• ISBN 13: 9780911682335
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 274
• Editor: Lloyd A. Eshbach