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"Great Jumping Jupiter!"
"Black Peril" has nothing to do with race. The main villain has a black beard and in fact is nicknamed Blackbeard. I thought I'd better put that up front.
I started this because I thought it was the one with the secret island hideout, but it turned out to actually be the one that introduces Ginger. Biggles titles are even worse than Dick Francis titles when it comes to remembering which title goes with which book. They should just be called "The One Where Biggles Gets Homemade Dungeon Cake" and "The One Where Biggles Rescues Von Stalhein From A Gulag" and "The One With the Giant Squid."
Algy and Biggles are flying in their amphibious plane, the Vandal, when they are forced down by bad weather and, in a quite beautiful bit of descriptive writing, discover an underwater landing strip. This is part of a smuggling operation, and Biggles accidentally stows away on the smugglers' experimental plane. He makes a good effort to pretend to be some random person who knows nothing about flying, but is betrayed by his own engraved cigarette case which not only says "RAF" but also contains a photo of him in goggles. Things escalate from there.
In one of this book's multiple kidnappings followed by escapes, Biggles run straight into Ginger, a teenage runaway. Hilariously, Ginger turns out to not only be an aspiring pilot who's run away to join the RAF, but is a Biggles fanboy. He's delighted to get a chance to get to know Biggles and Algy and take part in an adventure; for their part, Biggles and Algy are not terribly perturbed by letting a runaway teenager tag along with them on dangerous adventures to other countries. This makes more sense when you remember that Biggles and Algy were both Ginger's age when they joined the RAF and were sent off to a war they were unlikely to survive.
Ginger is a fan of American movies and peppers his dialogue with borrowed slang. For the first part of the story, he's clearly seeing himself as a movie hero. Here he is with a gun, yelling at some bad guys in the distance.
"Stay back there!" yelled Ginger, "or I'll drill you like - like a... now what the dickens do they drill people like?" he growled. "Colander - that's it." Then, raising his voice, "I'll drill you guys into a colander - two colanders," he bellowed. Then, to himself, as he retreated down the drive, "That doesn't sound right to me; I'll have to look it up in a book."
Later in the book Ginger actually does shoot someone, very justifiably but also point-blank and by accident. In an understatedly heartbreaking scene, he tells Biggles how shaken he is and Biggles talks to him in a brisk but sensitive manner that suggests that he's had the "so you killed someone for the first time" conversation a number of times before.
This was a very fun book overall and Ginger was delightful. I didn't even miss the secret island hideout.
"Black Peril" has nothing to do with race. The main villain has a black beard and in fact is nicknamed Blackbeard. I thought I'd better put that up front.
I started this because I thought it was the one with the secret island hideout, but it turned out to actually be the one that introduces Ginger. Biggles titles are even worse than Dick Francis titles when it comes to remembering which title goes with which book. They should just be called "The One Where Biggles Gets Homemade Dungeon Cake" and "The One Where Biggles Rescues Von Stalhein From A Gulag" and "The One With the Giant Squid."
Algy and Biggles are flying in their amphibious plane, the Vandal, when they are forced down by bad weather and, in a quite beautiful bit of descriptive writing, discover an underwater landing strip. This is part of a smuggling operation, and Biggles accidentally stows away on the smugglers' experimental plane. He makes a good effort to pretend to be some random person who knows nothing about flying, but is betrayed by his own engraved cigarette case which not only says "RAF" but also contains a photo of him in goggles. Things escalate from there.
In one of this book's multiple kidnappings followed by escapes, Biggles run straight into Ginger, a teenage runaway. Hilariously, Ginger turns out to not only be an aspiring pilot who's run away to join the RAF, but is a Biggles fanboy. He's delighted to get a chance to get to know Biggles and Algy and take part in an adventure; for their part, Biggles and Algy are not terribly perturbed by letting a runaway teenager tag along with them on dangerous adventures to other countries. This makes more sense when you remember that Biggles and Algy were both Ginger's age when they joined the RAF and were sent off to a war they were unlikely to survive.
Ginger is a fan of American movies and peppers his dialogue with borrowed slang. For the first part of the story, he's clearly seeing himself as a movie hero. Here he is with a gun, yelling at some bad guys in the distance.
"Stay back there!" yelled Ginger, "or I'll drill you like - like a... now what the dickens do they drill people like?" he growled. "Colander - that's it." Then, raising his voice, "I'll drill you guys into a colander - two colanders," he bellowed. Then, to himself, as he retreated down the drive, "That doesn't sound right to me; I'll have to look it up in a book."
Later in the book Ginger actually does shoot someone, very justifiably but also point-blank and by accident. In an understatedly heartbreaking scene, he tells Biggles how shaken he is and Biggles talks to him in a brisk but sensitive manner that suggests that he's had the "so you killed someone for the first time" conversation a number of times before.
This was a very fun book overall and Ginger was delightful. I didn't even miss the secret island hideout.