Book review: Castaway Island by William George Weekley

From the front cover:

BRUTALITY, SUSPENSE - AND DEATH! SIX MEN AND ONE WOMAN TRAPPED ON A DESERT ISLAND.

From the back cover:

FORMULA FOR DEATH - SEX MEN PLUS ONE WOMAN.

Oh Boy! What a letdown! The woman dies in the first hundred pages (of 400+) which makes the cover art and captions very misleading. Pretty much your standard pirate/deserted island yarn here with little else to recommend for it.

I don't want to give too much of this 1951 story away but there is a hunt for treasure here that you probably won't expect and the ending leaves you wanting more - such as a real ending after you have managed to plod through 400 pages of this stuff.

The book isn't too hard to find, there are used copies on Amazon (Castaway island)and it shows up on Ebay frequently. I got mine from a thrift store for the whopping total of fifty cents. Only recommended if you really love sea/pirate stories and you have read everything else that you can find first.

Originally titled The Ledger of Lying Dog.

(The Groovy Age of Horror blog has inspired me to start reading more and to post some mini-reviews of the books that I read. Thanks guys.)