Showing results by narrator "J.J. Campanella" in All Categories

This novelette is an homage to the amazing P. G. Wodehouse and his legendary characters Jeeves and Bertie Wooster. While living in 1920's New York City, Bertie is saddled with looking after the son of one of his Aunt Agatha's best mates, the Lady Mallowan. Bertie thinks that the young Lord Wiltshire is a useless, annoying nitwit, but he has no idea that left on his own a completely different side of the young Dermot will start to emerge, putting Bertie in a serious pickle.

The Electronic Mind Reader, the 12th Rick Brant novel, was published in 1957 and is another JANIG-based adventure with government spook Steve Ames as one of the main characters. The story involves foreign espionage against a secret government missile project based in Washington. Steve Ames comes for help from the Spindrift Foundation after several project scientists are struck down by a mysterious neural malady that seems to cause severe aphasia and inability to communicate.

Rick Brant, Don Scott, Dr. Tony Briotti, and Dr. Hobart Zircon travel down to the Virgin Islands on what is planned to be a pleasure trip. The boys’ only goal is to unearth a possible sunken shipwreck and find a golden Spanish statue lost centuries before to pirates. Archaeologist Tony plans to look for submerged Native American artifacts, while physicist Zircon expects to spend time just fishing. Soon after they reach Charlotte Amalie, the boys run across JANIG security agent Steve Ames in a chance encounter on the street.

All the Spindrifters want to do is to locate, quietly dig up and study some ancient native artifacts, including a full-sized, solid-gold skull that is sacred to the Filipino natives. Unfortunately, corrupt government officials want to steal it to sell on the black market, and head-hunting natives want to stop them because unearthing it will desecrate their lands.

Rick Brant and Don Scott are back from their vacation in the South Pacific and are finding adventure near Spindrift Island. They're on their own this time, with no support from any of the Spindrift scientists, though they do get help from a likable old sea salt named Cap'n Mike and some familiar members of the press.

As a former New York City cop who's working as a private detective in the state of Georgia, Myron Abramowitz is a stranger in a strange land. His big city detective agency has been hired by two rich heiresses to find their kidnapped father. This seems pretty straight-forward to Myron at first, but to his dismay, he quickly discovers that so far south of the Mason-Dixon Line there are more things than he can possibly imagine in his philosophy.

Several months have passed since Edwardo Bratenahl’s run in with the Red Devils in the woods outside of Cleveland. The police psychologist’s injuries have mostly healed and things are quiet again in Little Italy. But, trouble is on the horizon as Edwardo is contacted by the elderly principal of his old grade school, leading to a revelation involving glass sculptor Amanda Richard’s disappearance and her nephew’s seeming abandonment.

It is the near future. The Islamic Jihad is over. The Jihadis have beaten the West. Israel stands alone . . . Can what remains of Western civilization oppose their total world domination? What might arise from the dust of the crushed West to resist the martial efforts of the whole Arab world? This is the controversial novella of the final crusade and one soldier’s dark destiny as part of it.

Sea Gold is the third book in the Rick Brant Science Adventure series, where young adult Rick Brant and his ex-Marine pal, Don Scott, live on Spindrift Island off the coast of New Jersey, where Rick's father, Hartson Brant, heads the scientists of the Spindrift Foundation. In Sea Gold, Rick and Scotty are off for the summer because college is out of session and all the scientists have temporarily left Spindrift for other research challenges, so nothing is happening there.

Rick Brant and his friend Scotty are bound for the islands of the South Pacific. But beaches and the tropical climate are not what they have in mind. Deeper than divers have ever been lies the ancient temple of Alta-Yuan. Is the Spindrift's new experiment, the Submobile, capable of withstanding the pressures of the deep? If so, there may be others interested in using it for purposes other than scientific studies.

With the success of the lunar rocket in the previous novel, The Rocket's Shadow, Rick Brant and Scotty learn that they have been chosen as part of the Tibet expedition to place communications equipment there to bounce radar signals off the moon. From the beginning of the expedition, however, they discover that someone does not want the experiment to succeed. As the date for the lunar relay looms closer, they are still miles away from their destination and in the hands of a dangerous criminal. Their only friend is a clever Indian boy, Chahda, who has disappeared.

In The Rocket’s Shadow, Rick Brandt first meets his new friend Don Scott, and investigates the apparent sabotage of the Spindrift Foundation’s new experimental rocket, which if successful, will net them a two-million-dollar grant. The deadline is only a few days away, and confused fingers of guilt point to more than one suspect. But, who can it be? This novel is not only a ripping tale of young adventure, but it is very much a slice of life from the beginning of the cold war and serious experimentation in the U.S. with rockets.

In this Rick Brant Adventure #9: Rick and Scotty stay close to home near Spindrift Island, set mostly in an old abandoned amusement park on the New Jersey coast next to a scientific research facility. They're investigating a mysterious hit-and-run case that injured Rick's sister Barby and this time are up against hardened domestic criminals.

Barby Brant finally gets to leave Spindrift Island and accompany Rick and Scotty on an adventure. The three Spindrifters and Chahda meet their friends, the Warners, on the trawler Tarpon and head off to map fishing grounds in the exotic South Pacific. They soon run head long into a mystery concerning a mysterious individual called the Phantom Shark, who sells the best pearls to be be found anywhere and has a reputation for being a dangerous person to cross.

Police psychologist Edwardo Bratenahl is a young widower, still mourning the tragic loss of his wife. Bratenahl, an academic and native of the insular Cleveland neighborhood of Little Italy, is asked to assist with the homicide investigation of world-class geneticist Dr. Simon Pederson, who was viciously slain during Sunday mass. Bratenahl is partnered with Mary Kate Calderon, veteran homicide detective. The two soon discover a related murder, which Calderon confesses looks eerily like a scenario she witnessed as a child in Nicaragua.

As The Whispering Box Mystery gets underway, we find Rick and Scotty in an unfamiliar position: on the outside looking in, as Rick's father and scientist friends work on a secret government project. The Spindrift Island leader, Hartson Brant, had always implicitly trusted Rick and Scotty before, but ever since a government spook named Steve Ames came to him with details of a national threat, Hartson has refused to tell Rick and Scotty anything. It's a bitter pill to swallow, considering their record of saving Spindrift's projects from sabotage.