Python Isle — Kenneth Robeson

The world thought aviator Tom Franklin was dead. Years before, he had set out on a pioneering transpacific flight alone--and vanished.

When he returned, as if from the dead, he and a mysterious woman flew a battered plane that had been repaired with plates of pure gold. Desperately seeking the help of Doc Savage, the mighty Man of Bronze, Franklin and his curvacious charge fall into the clutches of the diamond smuggler Blackbird Hinton and his cutthroat crew--but not before the bronze adventurer hears of their difficulty.

There ensues a quest as dangerous as any in recorded history. One that will embroil the compassionate yet hard-fisted Doc Savage and his men in a raging battle for control of one of history's most closely guarded mysteries. The lost secret of Python Isle!