Rick Brant #4 100 Fathoms Under and #5 Whispering Box Mystery

In Rick Brant #4, 100 Fathoms Under, the Brants, Scotty, and the scientists travel to Hawaii on an expedition to explore a temple that is at the bottom of the ocean.  They will use their creation, the Submobile, for the exploration.  Rick quickly becomes suspicious of the captain of the ship, Turk, who alternates between friendly and sullen.  A strange Japanese man is found to be lurking near the ship, and Rick worries about sabotage.

This book has several derogatory terms including Jap, Nip, gooks, and yellow ape.  This isn't surprising since the book was published right after World War II.  The book also contains some very crude threats, including one where a man threatens to cut out another man's tongue.

Some of the banter between Chahda and Scotty gets on my nerves.  This is the sort of thing that occurs in boys' series that is not much to my liking.

I was temporarily bored a number of times during the descriptions of the Submobile and its parts as they worked on it.  I had to skim some of it.  I also found my mind wandering at times while I was reading the first half of the book.  The book doesn't get to the point until halfway through, when the Submobile is finally taken down underwater to the temple.  From that point on, the book is quite interesting.

The first half of the book is overall good although I was bored at times, and the second half is very good.

In Rick Brant #5, The Whispering Box Mystery, Rick is peeved because Hartson Brant and the scientists won't let him know about their current project.  Finally, Rick and Scotty are told a little bit about a whispering box used by villains to help them gain access to classified information.  The boys are sent to Washington, D.C. to help create a device to counter the effect of the whispering box . 

This book reads like a spy novel with lots of action and intrigue.  The reader is kept guessing at to what the villains' true motive is.  The book flows well and is interesting. I did find a few chase scenes to be a little long for my taste.  Towards the last few chapters, I grew tired of the story and was eager to finish.  That aside, I enjoyed this book.