I first stumbled across this delightful little gem at a church library. Not having the same resources as most public libraries, this branch had to rely on donations, and somewhere along the way, somebody donated the practically unheard-of Sea Gold by John Blaine from 1947. What a gift—even though it’s out of print, this has to be one of the greatest books ever written! Why, it’s even more exciting than most Hardy Boys books—with no disrespect for the more famous series, but how many of those can you name that involved an explosion, a diving escape from thugs on a boat, more explosions (these involving grenades), a plane chasing a car, a pursuit on foot through a subway, and, of course, the cover scene where our two stars are trapped in a concrete vault that’s filling up with water—and those aren’t even all the action scenes! Add in some surprising twists along the way, and you’re in for 214 pages that will make you laugh, gasp, and say “What!”—but more importantly, keep you on the edge of your seat the whole way through!
But before I tell you what this book is about, you might need to know something about the main characters, especially if this is your first encounter with the series. Rick Brant is a college-aged (the book’s not specific about how old) genius, son of the famous scientist Hartson W. Brant, who lives with his family on the fictional Spindrift Island off the coast of New Jersey. He’s accompanied in all the stories by his best friend Scotty, an orphaned former Marine very close to Rick in age, who’s always there with him for the fight.
In this story, the boys are looking for a job over their summer vacation from college. Their options are (1) help stack newspapers in the distribution department of the Whiteside, NJ paper, or (2) work at a sea mine. They instantly pick the second. And just what is a sea mine? You aren’t the only one asking; many of the book characters are puzzled about this at first, as well. As Scotty jokes, “[I] worked in a sea mine once. I’ll never forget it. You should’ve seen us drill the shafts. Straight down a hundred fathoms. The fish used to watch us go by, and their jaws’d be hanging open. Some of ‘em worked for us. We hired sculpins to pull the bags up with gold.”
No, it didn’t quite work like that—this is where the sci-fi twist comes in. Two friendly entrepreneurs, Doug Chambers and Tom Blakely, have come up with a scheme (quite legitimate) to get metal out of water. How? Well, it seems to have something to do with “using the electronic characteristics of the various molecules of the compounds in the solution” to separate dissolved minerals from seawater—a process that could be done with multiple types of metal, gold being the most desirable—don’t worry if that explanation confuses you, it confused Rick himself when he heard it—though his father thought it was an amazing idea indeed.
Amazing idea or not, though, Chambers and Blakely have been having a lot of trouble at the plant. For one thing, they can’t get any of the local workmen in the town of Crayville (somewhere near Bridgeport in Connecticut) to work for them because of a rumor that the partners’ process will poison fish (thus killing Crayville’s major industry). On top of that, someone has been sabotaging the partners’ equipment—Rick and Scotty witness this firsthand when one of the brother’s pressure domes blows up—threatening to doom the partner’s experiment, until a practical joke by Rick and Scotty gives them the answer they need to fix the domes—but as it turns out, this is just the beginning of the trouble Rick and Scotty will face as they help the entrepreneurial scientists out. The key to the mystery seems to involve a mysterious man named Fred Lewis—a beady-eyed character with an unnaturally white face who always shies away whenever Rick and Scotty shows up—but is he involved in the plot to sabotage the plant? Who is, and why—and will Rick and Scotty be able to stop them before its too late?
You’ll have to read the book yourself to find that out, but the 214 pages will fly by in your hands—just be careful with them—my copy’s so old and brittle, the pages are literally falling apart each time I read through it. One suggestion—if you can get a hold of The Rocket’s Shadow, Book 1 in the series, then read that one first. The books aren’t all connected to each other, but Book 1 ties in very importantly to this story. If you can’t find The Rocket’s Shadow, though, don’t worry about it too much—I couldn’t find it either, and I still loved this book the first time I read it. Ten out of ten stars—a wonderful adventure well worth the read!
Best lines (in my opinion): p. 62, when Rick borrows a plane from his friend Steve Hollis:
“Of course you’ll have to leave a ten-thousand dollar deposit,” [Steve] added.
“What luck,” Rick replied. “I just happen to have that much in my piggy bank. You don’t mind pennies, do you?”
“Certainly not. With that many pennies I can repave the runway with solid copper.”
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