Rick Brant is the central character in a series of 24 adventure and mystery novels by John Blaine, a pseudonym for authors Harold L. Goodwin (all titles) and Peter J. Harkins (co-author of the first three). The series was published by Grosset & Dunlap between 1947 and 1968, with the previously unpublished title The Magic Talisman printed in 1990 in a limited edition as the concluding #24. Description The Rick Brant series has a scientific tone and was taglined as "Electronic Adventures", "Science-Adventure Stories", and finally "SCIENCE Adventures". The science in the stories is realistic, unlike the more fantastic science of Tom Swift, Jr. In the series, Rick Brant lives on Spindrift Island off the coast of New Jersey, where his father heads the Spindrift Foundation, a group of scientists. Rick is involved in various adventures at home and abroad. The series is divided between stories that take place in the United States and in foreign countries. The Spindrift Foundation sends scientific expeditions to various foreign locations, with Rick sent along as an assistant. In the United States the stories take place in New Jersey, Nevada, Virginia, and Washington D.C. The foreign locales include the Virgin Islands, Tibet, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Tahiti, India, Nepal, Egypt, Nigeria, and Europe. For most of the series the locale alternates from the United States to a foreign land, with some exceptions. Hal Goodwin was a popular science writer with a strong technical background and a sense of style unusual in the juvenile adventure-series field. The books are suspenseful, well-plotted, atmospheric, and enriched by humor and acute characterization as well as personal experience. Exotic locales such as tropical islands, the Philippine jungles, and the Himalayas are given vivid and well-researched depictions, as are a variety of specialized hobbies and professions, such as scuba diving, infrared photography, home rocketry, and the inevitable espionage work. Like the Ken Holt mystery series, the tales appeal to a slightly older audience than do comparable Grosset & Dunlap series. Ken Holt had a crossover cameo in The Flying Stingaree, and Rick lent some of his gadgets to Ken in The Mystery of the Plumed Serpent, by agreement of the two authors. Rick is also a private pilot who owns his own airplanes and uses them in a number of the books. His first plane was a Piper Cub, presumably a Piper J-4, and his second was a "Sky Wagon",