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PASSAGE TO SAMOA by Day Keene was a book recommended by James Reasoner on Patti Abbot’s Forgotten Books a couple of Fridays ago. It caught my eye, as I’d read only a small amount of Keene’s work, and I found a copy on the used book sites. Mine is not the Gold Medal edition of James’ post, but a later edition some years later.

It was everything James said it was and you should read his excellent review if you haven’t already did so. It was short and sweet, something that seems out of vogue these days. Door stop books are not always good. I’ve enjoyed some and others seemed obviously padded out to reach a certain length. I agree with theories that a story should run to a necessary length and no more. Gold Medal specialized in that and did quite well.

This story is about a recovery mission in the South Seas and someone is out to stop it. Day Keene built nicely on the suspense, dropping in bits and pieces of the tale along the way, working toward a nice turn or two turns near the end.

All in a compact one hundred twenty-eight pages in my copy published by Macfadden-Bartell in 1967. I’m adding my own recommendation as well.

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