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Doc Savage Audiobook
The Jade Ogre
by Will Murray, Based on a Concept by Lester Dent
When Bantam Books asked me to continue the long-running Doc Savage series, I knew I wanted to base them on the uncompleted works of the late Lester Dent, originator of the Man of Bronze.
As I moved forward with the series, I started looking at Lester's files for material not conceived for Doc, but adaptable to the series. Early in his career, Dent had created a hulking hero he called Curt Flagg, a private investigator of the Sam Spade knock 'em and shoot 'em up hardboiled detective school popular at that time. This series appeared in a magazine called Scotland Yard in 1931.
I could detect some of the energy and ideas for Doc Savage percolating in the Curt Flagg stories. He was no ordinary PI. Flagg took on pirates, Zeppelin high-jackers and wicked master criminals, supported by a growing band of savvy operatives. He was Doc Savage before Doc Savage.
Scotland Yard soon fell victim to the Great Depression. When the magazine was cancelled, one complete Curt Flagg story and an unused outline were orphaned. It was the outline that interested me. It told the tale of how Flagg and some of his assistants booked passage on a San Francisco to Hong King ocean liner to hunt down Quon, the Jade Ogre—one of the most malevolent master criminals in the world.
By transforming Curt Flagg to Doc Savage, changing his lovely blonde assistant, Dita Vardi, to Patricia Savage, and inserting some of Doc's men into the mix, I believed I had a template for a great Doc Savage story.
The Jade Ogre will carry you the listener from the fog-shrouded streets of the Chinatown of 1935 San Francisco to the crumbling ruins of Cambodia as the armless and ruthless Jade Ogre attempts to blackmail the world with his lethal Jade Fever. This is a quest, a running gangster war and a fearful excursion into the heart of darkness that is Asia—or the Asia Americans imagined in the 1930s.
Think Dr. Fu Manchu meets China Seas. You won't be disappointed.
 Will Murray is the author of over 60 novels in popular series ranging from The Destroyer to Mars Attacks. Collaborating posthumously with the legendary Lester Dent, he has written to date numerous Doc Savage novels, with Skull Island, Death’s Dark Domain, Desert Demons, Horror in Gold, and The Ice Genius among those now available. For National Public Radio, Murray adapted The Thousand-Headed Man for The Adventures of Doc Savage in 1985, and recently edited Doc Savage: The Lost Radio Scripts of Lester Dent for Moonstone Books. He is versed in all things pulp.
Roger Rittner has written, produced, and directed audio drama specials and multi-part series, including the drama series Darkness, the mystery/macabre series Midnight, The Adventures of Doc Savage, the Western musical comedy Rhythm Rides the Range, and the musical special Charlie Sent Me! His radio projects have been heard on National Public Radio, as well as stations KMPC, KFI, KCSN, and KGBS in Los Angeles. Roger created and directed The Variety Arts Radio Theatre, live recreations of classic radio drama, for 10 years at the Variety Arts Center in Los Angeles. In addition to producing audiobooks for RadioArchives.com, Roger produces his series of audio versions of classic pulp short stories, Pulp Radio. In his off-hours, his company, Roger Rittner Productions, creates marketing and promotional audios and videos for corporate clients.
Michael McConnohie began reading at a very early age and developed a lifelong relationship with the written and spoken word. As an actor, he has appeared in soap operas, cartoons, prime-time TV, and on the stage. His audiobook narrations range from true crime to history, biography, science, self-help and poetry. He is an Earphones award winner for fiction.
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