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1939: Highroad to Adventure

While the Araby is in dry dock, Tod Moran plans a driving vacation from San Francisco to the east coast, but is called by Captain Tom Jarvis to drive instead to Mexico City and bring with him important documents related to a Blakemore Company investment in Tasco. Along the Pan-American highway, a rock slide and continuous dangers arise as mysterious or unknown assailants attempt to prevent him from completing his mission.

1939: Long Wharf

Based upon factual events in 1850 San Francisco, the story includes the famed barkentine Niantic, fires, rampant crime, harbor frontage, and 600 ships deserted by crews who left for the gold fields. Danny Mason is left alone to watch the barkentine owned by his father, but Captain Mason disappears as does a Mr. Howard. Danny, Mrs. Howard, and her daughter must survive while searching for lost family members.

1941: The Black Tanker

With the Araby temporarily not available, Captain Jarvis and Tod Moran, joined by Toppy and Swede and an inexperienced Ranee Warren seeking his father injured in China, accept an assignment on the tanker Zambora headed for China with oil for the invading Japanese military. Every effort, including murder, is made by unknown perpetrators to prevent the Zambora from reaching its destination.

1942: Night Boat

First published as separate short stories in the American Boy’s Magazine, these tales of Third Mate Tod Moran and Captain Tom Jarvis, are woven together as diverse, interesting experiences, and combined as sections in Night Boat telling many of the other exciting adventures of Moran and Jarvis. Included are mysteries from the South Pacific and a toll bridge near Stockton, California.

1945: Thunderbolt House

In Stockton, Jud Allen and his family wait for the return of his mother from Uncle Edward Judson’s funeral. The family had inherited large sums of money and access to the huge Thunderbolt House (named for Edward’s silver mine) located on once famous Bush Street in still sinful San Francisco. A robbery, Jud’s inheritance of Edward’s book collection, and family intrigue become intertwined with the famous earthquake and fire of 1906.

1946: Heart of Danger

The Araby, with Captain Jarvis in command, is part of a 1943 convoy off the coast of France; crew members Tod Moran and Rudy Behrens volunteer for a secret mission in Nazi-occupied France where they are led to Paris by the French underground, encounter the Gestapo, terror against the Jews, musical codes, and the Buchenwald Concentration Camp in an effort to forward secret intelligence reports to Allied headquarters.

1948: Bound for Singapore

Young Chet Hardy and friend Janet are learning to write stories. Chet needs more life experiences and decides to work on a ship bound for Singapore; the only berth he can obtain is on the Aztec Princess, bound for New York. Toppy and Swede help him try to protect a prized dog. For younger readers, Chet’s journal equals a writing textbook for students and teachers, but is of less interest than the Moran mysteries.

1950: The Dark Adventure

Johnny Stevens is on his way from Illinois to California to work for his uncle and finish high school, the result of his father’s death and family finances. Rather than go by bus, he hitch hikes, but one ride involves a car wreck and his amnesia. Luckily the Whipples come by with their trailer, and thus begins the “dark adventure,” as now “Charley Whipple” encounters tramps, police, and escapades as he searches for his lost identity.

1953: Captain of the Araby

Captain Jarvis, Third Mate Moran, Toppy, Swede, and young Rick Nichols experience strange events delaying the departure of the Araby from San Francisco to Papeete, including a stolen suitcase, a smuggled object, an eventual trip on the Wind-Rider to Taranoa with old friend Stan Ridley, a murder, and the possible theft of an original undiscovered Paul Gauguin painting completed while he lived in Tahiti.

1957: Shipwreck

Two schooners disappear in the remote South Pacific islands area of the Tanga Sea and Jorango. The ships are never found, nor are the crews. One was captained by James Mitchum. His son Renny, in search of his father, gains a berth on the schooner Samarang, bound for Jorango. During the voyage, he learns that the mission is to investigate the fate of the missing ships, with the blame for their loss pointing to Captain Mitchum.

1961 : Mystery on Telegraph Hill

Pease, in his last major book written at age 67, returns to create his thirteenth Tod Moran mystery. He employs a unique technique in story telling, using taped “interviews” with each of the key characters. He also includes Tod’s brother, Neil, and his wife Shelia, who were major characters from the first Pease book, The Tattooed Man, along with their now 8-year old son, Jeff.

The Araby is docked in San Francisco for a week. Tod visits Neil and Shelia to bring nephew Jeff a gift—a horrible devil mask from his last South Pacific voyage. On his way back to the Araby, in an extremely dense fog, Tod is knocked down, slugged, taken into a row house, and finally thrown into the street to be found by the police. Charged with a jewelry store robbery and murder, Tod is in jail. Captain Jarvis, Toppy, Swede, Neil, Sheila, Jeff, and “the devil mask” seek clues pointing toward another suspect to convince the police to investigate further the Mystery on Telegraph Hill.

Summary

Howard Pease started writing while still in school, and was published most often in his early years as an author of short story mysteries for the American Boy ’s Magazine, produced by Sprague Publishers, and in the Classmate Stories magazine. His first major sea story book was The Tattooed Man, written in 1926 at the age of 32. He continued teaching, writing, and lecturing extensively until age 67 (1961) when he semi-retired until his death in 1974 at the age of 80 years.

He continued writing during World War II, with Heart of Danger based upon the Nazi control of Europe. He spent most of his life in the San Francisco area; California was fortunate to retain a native author from birth to death, except for time spent in journeys on ship, and his temporary residence times in other countries.