Hey You Guys!

Reading Challenge 2017: book you got from a used book store.  Brand of the Werewolf, by Kenneth Robeson had a misleading cover. I expected, as the cover depicts, that Doc Savage would be fighting a werewolf during this novel.  However, there was no werewolf, only the symbol of one whenever people were knocked unconscious by a sleeping agent (inconspicuously found in butter at one point).  However, a werewolf was blamed as if all lycanthropes had this power.


Doc and his five friends must rescue his niece Patricia Savege and her Indian servant Tiny after his brother, Alex Savage, was killed in the Canadian wilderness.  We think it is from a heart attack, but we discover it was from poison.  Tiny's husband Boat Face was also killed as well by the individuals after the ivory cube.
The Indians speak like classic Hollywood movie Indians in that they have a "heap problem" speaking white man's words.  It made me giggle, as that is probably how people of that time period thought all Native Americans spoke.  
The adventure starts on a train (why are they not flying to Canad) where we are introduced to Senor Oveja and his daughter Cere Oveja and their companion El Rabanos (which means radish in Spanish) who think Doc Savage is after them through a misunderstanding.  Typical running on top of the fast-moving train, the engine getting unhooked, and visits to the dinner car happen.
We get Spanish words translated for us (the language learned as in every book) and discover there is a treasure on a hidden Spanish Galleon, ancestors of the Ovejas.  There is a carved ivory cube that has a hidden map of the galleon inside that Mr. Radish and his people are trying to locate as they want the gold too.  We discover that Boat Face is not so stupid as portrayed in the story in that he figures out the riddle of the ivory cube, relocates the treasure, all before being killed by Mr. Radish's men.  Patricia Savage looks like Doc, and foreshadows her role in future novels.  






I still am unsure of why a werewolf battling Doc Savage was on the front of the novel, as that never happened.  I expected a local mythology surrounding this, which also never happened.  I was disappointed to say the least.  The story reminded me of an adult version of The Goonies, without all the comedy, even though Ham and Monk continue to jibe each other through out the story.