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Robb White (1909 – 1990) was an American writer of screenplays, television scripts, and adventure novels. His parents were Episcopal missionaries in the Philippines, where he was born. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1931 and served in the U.S. Navy during World War II as a pilot, eventually reaching the rank of lieutenant commander. After the war, he wrote extensively but is best remembered for his YA World War II adventure novels. His combat experience helped him add realism to his plots and characters. You may have seen the movie Up Periscope – it is based on his novel. The two books reviewed below, however, are not set in World War II. They are both appropriate for upper middle school to high school reading and comprehension levels. They are both very well-written and very exciting!
One of the greatest novels in the English language is Treasure Island. Why are we drawn to this book? Mainly because seeking for buried treasure, especially with a map, has always been an exciting activity. Secret Sea, written in 1946, is Robb White’s Treasure Island. I said above that the two books in this review are not set in World War II, and they aren’t, but Secret Sea does start out in World War II as Pete Martin commands a destroyer. He discovers an old shipwreck deep underwater, possibly full of Aztec gold from the 1500s, but has to pass it by because of his war duties. Then the war ends, Pete’s little brother Johnny breaks his back in two places and needs a lot of money for his care and possible recovery, and Pete decides to go after the treasure. He is joined by a street kid named Mike and finds out that he is being pursued, because of the treasure, by a mysterious, unscrupulous German man named Weber. Mix in a giant octopus, deep diving, Pacific storms, sailing ships, and the US Navy, and you get quite an adventure!
Deathwatch was written in 1972 and set in what was then the modern day. There is a theme in literature that often appears in stories: a bitter struggle between the hero and the enemy, between the protagonist and the antagonist. Sometimes each leads an army so the story becomes a war story. Sometimes there is an economic struggle between two businessmen, one less moral than the other. Sometimes, in crime fiction, the struggle is between the detective who wants justice and the criminal that wants to evade capture.
In Deathwatch, the struggle is between Ben and Madec in the California desert and the struggle has some elements of all that I have just mentioned. Ben is the moral young man who is the hunting guide for Madec, an amoral wealthy man who wants to bag a bighorn sheep. There is nothing wrong with this – bighorn sheep are in season and he has a permit – but it quickly becomes clear to Ben that Madec always tries to get his way, no matter what or who he has to remove from his path. When Madec accidentally shoots and kills an old prospector that he mistakes for a sheep at long distance, Ben wants to report the death and Madec wants to cover it up. Ben refuses to go along with the cover-up. Madec doesn’t kill Ben but at gunpoint strips him of everything and forces him into the desert, watching over him through his rifle’s scope to make sure Ben succumbs to exposure and lack of water. Ben’s ingenuity and bravery is amazing to watch as he not only survives but manages to turn the tables on Madec. Even the final plausible lies of Madec in the face of justice are finally defeated with the truth and the help of an eccentric doctor. This is a suspense-filled book, with many twists and turns that keep the reader turning page after page until he or she realizes that they have read way past their bedtime!