Beam To Brazil by Richard Sale

Beam To Brazil is a novella by Richard Sale included in the 1949 Popular Library edition of Home Is The Hangman (reviewed here). It packs as much tension and excitement as a full novel. I actually enjoyed it more than its companion piece.

First serialized in 1943, this thriller is firmly set during the war - indeed at a crisis point for the Army.

Rick Martin, radio engineer for Trans American Airlines has been sent to an emergency post in Puerto Rico. Pompano Point south of San Juan has been cleared for an antenna array constructed at the Army's request. The body of the previous engineer in charge, Danny Bellew, has just been found dead by 'suicide' - he shot himself twice.

Rick and his partner, civil engineer Charlie Coles, are briefed by the Trans American chief on the top secret reason for the antennas. In ten days, the Army will begin flying planes into Africa, and this radio beam will carry them from Miami to Brazil, and over to French Morocco. It must be operational, they cannot fail.

Rick will be in charge, backed up by Coles, and an engineer already there, George Carstairs, along with the head of executive communications Jennifer Peckham, one of the best radio engineers around. They discover shoddy workmanship at the site and concrete that fails. They sleep and eat at the base, working through the nightly blackout periods to erect the antennas, before sabotage strikes. Outside interests want them to fail - who is hiding who they actually are?

This was a rip-roaring thriller, filled with solid characters in an exotic setting, a tight plot with ingenious solutions. I enjoy all of Sale's work, and for me this was one of his best, second to Not Too Narrow, Not Too Deep. I wish it was longer. Popular Library published two other sets of Sale novellas (Death At Sea, Murder At Midnight), and this novella deserves to be better known.

For pulp fans, the book cover pictured here is my own creation, using the excellent artwork of Rudolph Belarski who has elevated so many Popular Library titles. Like some other Popular Library titles, a sexy gun-toting blonde has nothing to do with the plot, but it does capture your eye. Beam To Brazil deserves its own cover.

1943 / Paperback / 63 pages