INCOMING

• "Gordon Ashe"(John Creasey), You've Bet Your Life, bound with Robert Chavis, The Terror Package,  An Ace Double from 1957.  Creasey used the "Gordon Ashe" pseudonym for fifty novels featuring Patrick Dawlish of British Intelligence (and later of Scotland yard) and four four stand-alone mysteries, of which this was the last.  This one is about a kidnapping in Manhattan.  After a brief check on the web, I still have no idea who Robert Chavis is or was. The Terror Package is copyrighted by A. A. Wyn, Inc., the owners of Ace Books; the story is one of international intrigue on the Arizona border.
• R. R. Winterbotham, Joyce of the Secret Squadron.  Juvenile, a 1942 Whitman Authorized Edition.  Joyce is teenaged Joyce Davis, an adventurous aviatrix and a trusted member of Captain Midnight's Secret Squadron.  Captain Midnight, of course, is the hero of the popular radio radio show -- a WWI flying ace who has gathered a group of daring flyers on a remote Pacific island where, as the Secret Squadron, the serve unofficially as an auxiliary intelligence and air arm for the United States.  This time they are up against on of Midnight's most dangerous enemies, The Barracuda.  Russ Winterbotham was a newspaper reporter and competent pulp writer best known for his SF novels (under his own name and once as "Franklin Hadley") in the 50s and 60s and (as "J. Harvy Bond") for his mysteries.  He left the pulps during the 40s and concentrated on juveniles for Whitman Publishing, including of sixty titles for their Big Little Books line.  Joyce of the Secret Squadron was the third Captain Midnight book that he wrote for Whitman; the previous two were the Big Little Books titles Captain Midnight and the Secret Squadron (1941) and Captain Midnight and the Secret Squadron Versus the Terror of the Orient (1942).  Next to Hopalong Cassidy, Captain Midnight was my favorite in my early television viewing days -- I even put up with the cheesy dubbing of the name "Jet Jackson" in the syndicated reruns.  I found this book in a thrift shop and had to pick it up for old time's sake.