THE SPOTTED MEN
From March 1940, this is a mild but readable story, written by William Bogart in his straightforward, blunt manner. In the postwar Doc novels, he did some fine, tense thrillers but his writing skills did not seem fully developed at this time. Bogart is clear and orderly, but there is little exitement in his style and he has no flair for the creative gadgets or bizarre twists that were such an essential part of the classic Doc Savage stories.
THE SPOTTED MEN is a minor adventure (well, minor by Doc's standards; you or I would likely be nervous wrecks after going through it). There are mysterious shenanigans at a steel plant near Lake Erie, where workers in increasing numbers are starting to go insane after breaking out in unsightly red boils. They have fatal accidents or die from the efffects of the strange affliction and there is tension as keeping their jobs is weighed against keeping their lives. To make matters worse (and slightly confusing), some outside thugs are painting themselves with spots and posing as infected workers to stir things up even more. Then Pat Savage turns up, is promptly kidnapped (again) and spends most of the book on the shelf*.
The villain is pretty mediocre, not even having one of those cool code names like the Gray Spider or the Camphor Wraith. Flying a black plane at times, cloaked and hooded in black, he's a mastermind with no flair or style. To make things worse, as soon as he's introduced out of disguise, he's such an unlikely suspect, that the reader practically has no choice but to accept that this wretch is the bad guy. And any supercriminal who wears a mask but doesn't remove a large, distinctive ring obviously has a subconscious desire to be caught.
Doc and his usual sidekicks Monk and Ham are joined late in the story by Renny, the logical choice to call into a steel mill mystery. In a way, Renny is as versatile as Doc. The big-fisted engineer seems to be skilled at every sort of project-- bridges, dams, tunnels, roads. In CARGO UNKNOWN, he mentions that he's also designed submarines, something a bit out of his field. One of the most unlikely red herrings in the series is dragged across our trail as a clue supposedly proving Renny has been killed: a strangely-shaped diamond from a ring he wears. Our rough, plain-dressing Colonel Renwick would not be likely to wear a diamond ring (Ham might, though, and Monk would probably have a gaudy pinky ring), but it would be interesting to try one of his rings on and try to get two fingers in it.
There is a scene that suggests Bogart had no idea how truth serum works. A man given a dose talks freely and lucidly, almost volunteering information. We also learn about the salt tablets the steel workers take to compensate for their excessive, constant sweating. Is this practice still in use? With all the salt contained in processed foods, it seems likely the average American is saturated with much more salt than the body needs and would be better off drinking fresh water.
Possibly the most noteworthy moment is when Doc Savage deliberately takes a human life. As a crook is about to release tons of white-hot molten steel on a crowd, the bronze man has only one way to stop him, throwing a piece of metal that knocks the villain into the metal himself. "Doc paused only a moment" before doing this. The bronze man has not taken an absolute oath against killing, especially when it's necessary to protect innocent lives, he's simply dedicated to preventing needless deaths. Doc is moral and humane, but he's also pragmatic in dire situations.