THE AIRSHIP LADYSHIP ADVENTURE

Jane Charrington and the indomitable housekeeper Mrs. Deal, the heroines of Operation Peeg (1974), embark on another adventure when the giant airship Ladyship launches prematurely with only the two of them aboard. After a perilous journey, relieved only by Mrs. Deal's home cooking, the Ladyship crashes in the Alps and the odyssey continues via a balloon-driven ski chalet, ending in the isolated African valley of the Mountains of the Moon where the peaceful Barabous and their trained tigers are menaced by a white-faced tyrant named Mub. Mub is soon revealed to be none other than Victor Von Bummhausen, ""the monster of Marmlein concentration camp,"" but no match for Mrs. Deal who leaves her silver-polishing, conquers her fears with a little medicinal gin, and rides tiger-back to the rescue of Jane and her companions. It all adds up to a sort of junior grade, English-public-school James Bond caper. And if the camp stereotypes and upper-crust coziness wear tissue-thin in the course of this second long-distance outing, the author's mechanical ingenuity is apparently boundless. Among those who share his enthusiasm for attenuated farce and his affection for infernal contraptions, there'll be a definite Airship Ladyship readership.