China Coaster

Donald Taylor Smith was in Europe at the outbreak of WW2. He offered his aviation services to the RCAF through the offices of Canada House and was accepted into pilot training in the RAFVR. He served from 1938 through 1945. Between the years 1968 and 1978, Smith wrote 21 books in the Secret Mission series for Award Books. Smith also wrote a private-eye series starring an ex-CIA agent named Tim Parnell. 

Before obtaining consistent momentum with series titles, Smith wrote a handful of stand-alone novels, including his third career effort, China Coaster. The novel was originally published in the November 1952 issue of Bluebook with a gorgeous cover by Harrison Miller and insert illustrations by Stan Drake. It was published in paperback by Popular Library (#522) in 1953 with a Rafael DeSoto cover. It was reprinted again by Popular in an Eagle Books edition in 1960 with a cover by Harry Schaare (pictured).

Mike O'Connor is the captain of a private freighter hauling goods in Asia. Through a wild series of events, Mike ends up working as a clandestine informer on human trafficking in China. After being betrayed by a business associate, Mike awakens on a ship headed toward brutal Communist Russia. He has two goals – escape the ship and reunite with his Russian lover, Anya, in Shanghai. He achieves both, but after a short rendezvous with Anya, she is murdered in her bed. Mike wants revenge, but also needs to find Anya's sister Lena. Whoever killed Anya will surely target her sister.

Mike's investigative journey through exotic locales plunges him into the slave trade. Unfortunately, Lena has been kidnapped and sold. The bulk of  Smith's harrowing narrative is laced with quick, rewarding action scenes as Mike and Lena flee remote villages, commandeer a steamer, align with modern-day pirates, and attempt to escape into the British colony of Hong Kong. 

Before the war, Smith was employed as a foreign correspondent. I guess that he had experiences in Asia and writes these hot, muggy locales with a sense of sweaty realism. I've always enjoyed the mid-20th-century crime noirs and espionage romps that incorporate the South Pacific. Like A.S. Fleischman, Smith paints the atmosphere perfectly, highlighting the dangers and mystique for readers who may have never experienced international travel. The amount of characters and plot jumps might be a little dense, but anyone familiar with spy fiction or Smith's Secret Mission series shouldn't have any navigation issues. China Coaster is a fun ride.

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