Brand of the Werewolf (A Doc Savage Adventure #5)

Doc and his five assistants go on vacation to the western shores of Canada, where Doc's Uncle Alex owns a huge wildlife refuge. The Uncle has been murdered before the book begins, killed by a mysterious sleep which mirrors a sudden heart attack. These sleeping episodes continue, each one accompanied by a smudge of the face of a werewolf left at the scene. The mystery involves an ivory cube containing a map inside which shows the location of a shipwreaked galleon filled with lost treasure. The Doc Savage books are not politically correct, and in this one, the insulted race is the Spanish, those "swarthy-looking fellows." This is also the book that introduces Doc's beautiful bronze cousin, Pat, daughter of the late Alex. She becomes one of Doc's assistants in a number of future adventures. The writing is true pulp fiction: fast, simple, direct with an occasional memorable line such as: "A fat, milky bag of a moon leaked its beams."