False Cargo

Written by L. Ron Hubbard

Narrated by Brooke Bloom and Edoardo Ballerini

Insurance investigator Brent Calloway may be too hard-boiled to crack a smile, but he'll go to any length to crack a case. Calloway's about to go to extremes to see to it that one ship makes it safely from Hawaii to the mainland. Going undercover and posing as ruthless killer Spike O'Brien, Calloway quickly discovers that on this ship nothing is what it seems, and no one can be trusted. Rattling machine guns, howling winds, and ship-tossing waves come together as the audio version of False Cargo delivers a full payload of action and intrigue.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Galaxy Audio
• Release date: Apr 29, 2024
• ISBN: 9781592124466

L. Ron Hubbard

With 19 New York Times bestsellers and more than 350 million copies of his works in circulation, L. Ron Hubbard is among the most acclaimed and widely read authors of our time. As a leading light of American Pulp Fiction through the 1930s and '40s, he is further among the most influential authors of the modern age. Indeed, from Ray Bradbury to Stephen King, there is scarcely a master of imaginative tales who has not paid tribute to L. Ron Hubbard.

Reviews for False Cargo

[jmourgos · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hubbard’s False Cargo is a collection of shorts from his 1930s/1940s pulp fiction period.

False Cargo is typical of such he-man stories, but there are enough plot twists to keep the reader interested. Hubbard is especially good at writing accuracy into his stories, such that the glossary at the back of the book really comes in handy.

Brent Calloway has been good at breaking up gangs and insurance scams but this one is different. He seems to have met his match in a bar, a fat drunk by the name of O’Brian. Pretending to be the drunk, he gets himself hired as a mercenary to wreck a ship and have the owners collect the insurance.

Good story. I liked the way the description of the ships, enough tossing and turning and a few near misses of a fast-whining bullet to keep me seasick and scared. Not a lot of romance, but enough to satisfy.

Grounded is another one, though an inferior tale to False Cargo. Somewhere off the China coast, ships are run through a river where ambushes often happen. The narrator is one of the crew and accepts aboard a captain who rumor has it that he let a man die in a plane accident. He got a chute and his partner didn’t!

Themes of this tale are pretty clear: Don’t buy rumors. And a man who has to live with a bad repute can still pull things together and make it all go right. The ending for me did not flow well. I may have to reread it!

Bottom Line: Good collection of adventure/ship yarns. Great example of pulp fiction of the time. The reader needs to keep in mind of the style of the times to really enjoy them. Recommended.