The Night Raiders - Marlin Williams

   2022; 96 pages.   New Author? : No.  Book 5 (out of 5) in the upcoming Pulp Reality digest “The Lost Adventures of Captain Hawklin”.  Genres : Action & Adventure; Pulp Fiction; Short Stories.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

    Captain Steven Hawklin rides again!  He flies again!  But most of all, he rockets again!  And he’s doing it all to protect a cargo plane carrying a valuable payload and flying way out over the Atlantic Ocean.

 

    There’s a lot Captain Hawklin doesn’t know about the operation.  Such as who might be trying to bring shoot down the cargo plane.  And what the precious cargo is.  But one thing he knows for sure.

 

    If the cargo plane doesn’t make it to its destination, the smuggler who owns the plane's consifnment will kill the someone especially precious to Captain Hawklin.

 

    Desa Wintergreen.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Night Raiders is a short story penned by Marlin Williams and, as shown in the fabulous cover image above, part of a soon-to-be-released anthology, The Lost Adventures of Captain Hawklin.  It will showcase Charles F. Millhouse's dashing hero, Captain Steven Hawklin, and five veteran Pulp Reality authors have contributed tales to it.

    The action in The Night Raiders starts immediately, and includes lots of furious fighting, damsels in distress, nasty Nazis, and even a femme fatale or two. There are plenty of plot twists, which keeps our hero off-balance and the reader turning the pages. I especially liked the situational ethics dilemma he finds himself in: how should he respond to an unsavory foe who's blackmailing him into aiding and abetting a shady operation?

 

    AFAIK, all the Captain Hawklin adventures are set in the 1930s.  Biplanes exist alongside personal rocket-packs (Captain Hawklin is an ingenious inventor.), and the story's historical details are well-researched.  For instance, I thought I had found a glitch when a Sopwith Camel's propeller shattered because it was made of wood, but it turns out these vintage World War One planes really were equipped with wooden propellers.  Kudos to Marlin Williams for this enlightening bit of historical accuracy.

Ratings…
    Amazon:  5.0/5 based on 1 rating and 1 review. (mine)

    Goodreads: 5.00/5 based on 2 ratings and 0 reviews.

 

Excerpt...

    “Whose dumb idea was it to fly out on a night like this anyway?”

    “It was the broad’s idea,” the pilot shot back.  “She insisted.”

    “I thought German dames were smart, but apparently not that broad.”  The copilot hiked his thumb and aimed it back toward the fuselage.  “She ain’t got a lick of sense.”

    Eva Braun, who was now standing just outside the cockpit spoke coldly.  “This senseless broad was wondering if she could get a cigarette from one of you gentlemen.”  (loc. 473)

 

“How’s a skyrocket strapped to your back supposed to protect us?”  (loc. 456)

    The Night Raiders held my interest throughout and I highly recommend it to any fan of Pulp Fiction. Thus far it's the only one of the five short stories I've read, but thanks to an earlier anthology titled Pulp Reality 2, I'm familiar with the works of all these writers. The others are Brian K. Morris, Bobby Nash, Clyde Hall, and Charles F. Millhouse and I've found all five to be talented storytellers.

 

    Now the only question is whether to buy the other four entries as singles at their present great price (99 cents apiece), or wait for the bundle to come out, which is slated for January 2023. It's a pleasant problem to have.