Best 1947 Adventures (3)
By:
June 7, 2017
One in a series of 10 posts identifying Josh Glenn’s favorite 1947 adventure novels. Happy 70th anniversary!
Hammond Innes’s treasure-hunt adventure The Lonely Skier.
When unemployed ex-soldier Neil Blair bumps into an old comrade, Engles, who’d served with him before moving into Army Intelligence, Engles hires Blair as a script editor on a film he’s producing in the Dolomites. Once in Cortina, a popular winter sport resort, Blair encounters an assortment of shady characters, from England, Italy, and Greece, including a beautiful contessa, and slowly realizes that some or all of them are involved in a plot… that involves Nazi gold, buried somewhere nearby. Blair is taken on treacherous ski expedition — which he barely survives. Who’s in on the plot? Can anyone be trusted? When Blair discovers the gold’s location, he must flee for his life.
Fun fact: One of the first adventures set in the post-War world of skiing — think of all the cable car scenes we’ve encountered since then. The book was made into a 1948 movie, Snowbound, that’s impossible to find.
Let me know if I’ve missed any 1947 adventures that you particularly admire.