Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: The Feds, October 1936

THE FEDS was a G-Man pulp published by Street & Smith, a company that usually was very successful with anything they put out there. Not so with THE FEDS, which lasted for only 15 issues in 1936 and '37. But its lack of longevity can't be attributed to the generally pretty good covers, including this one on the second issue which is probably collectable because of the presence of all those Ku Klux Klansmen on it. I don't know who painted it. Nor were the writers any slouches. This issue features stories by Steve Fisher, Wyatt Blassingame, W.T. Ballard, Arthur J. Burks, William G. Bogart, Laurence Donovan, Jean Francis Webb, George Allan Moffatt (Edwin V. Burkholder), James Duncan (Arthur Pincus), and house-name Bruce Harley. Probably some good reading there. I don't own this issue and it doesn't appear to be available on-line, but if I did have a copy of it, I wouldn't hesitate to give it a try. 

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Thrilling Detective, December 1935

This issue of THRILLING DETECTIVE sports a gruesome but eye-catching and dramatic cover by Rafael DeSoto. Nothing good ever comes from a suit of armor on a pulp cover! Inside this issue are stories by Barry Perowne (a Raffles yarn), Arthur J. Burks, Steve Fisher, Dwight V. Babcock, John Scott Douglas, Paul Hawk, Edmond Du Perrier, and the oddly named Tom Erwin Geris, who, if you rearrange the letters, turns out to be none other than Mort Weisinger, who wrote quite a few pulp stories but is best remembered as the long-time editor of the Superman titles at DC Comics during the Silver Age. He had a reputation as quite a curmudgeon as far as the writers and artists were concerned, but I didn't know any of that at the time. I just read the comic books and enjoyed them. I don't believe I've ever read any of his pulp stories, though. 

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Tales, March 1951

Now that's a striking cover. That guy looks a little calmer than I would be in the same situation. Not that I would ever find myself in that situation. There's quite a lineup of authors in this issue of DETECTIVE TALES, too: John D. MacDonald, William Campbell Gault, Steve Fisher, Gil Brewer, T.T. Flynn, John Hawkins, and Paul Kingston. I don't know anything about Kingston, but the others are all top-notch. 

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Black Mask, May 1938

This cover is by an artist I'm not familiar with, Raymond S. Pease. According to the Fictionmags Index, he did only a handful of pulp covers, all for BLACK MASK during the late Thirties. I like the tropical look of this one, plus the little details like the wine spilling from both glasses. There are some fine writers in this issue, as well: Carroll John Daly with a Satan Hall story, Frank Gruber with an Oliver Quade story, and yarns by Roger Torrey, Steve Fisher, William R. Cox, and Donald Wandrei. That's a nice group of hardboiled pulpsters.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Top-Notch, February 1934

TOP-NOTCH published some good adventure fiction, had good authors and good covers like this one by Don Hewitt. It's not as well-remembered as some of the other adventure pulps, but from what I can tell, it was a pretty solid magazine. This issue includes stories by Steve Fisher, Leslie McFarlane (the original Franklin W. Dixon of Hardy Boys fame), Hal Field Leslie, Harold F. Cruickshank, C.T. Stoneham, and assorted lesser-known authors. I'd have been tempted by that cover if I had an extra dime and nickel in my pocket back in 1934.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: G-Men, May 1937

The red and yellow color scheme that was so common on Western pulps made it onto covers in other pulp genres as well, for example this issue of G-MEN. I don't know the artist, but I want to say it might be Richard Lyon. I've really enjoyed the Dan Fowler stories I've read over the years and ought to read more of them. The one in this issue of probably by Charles Greenberg, who wrote some Phantom Detective novels that I liked. Tom Curry, Steve Fisher, and Westmoreland Gray have short stories in this issue. Curry's Westerns are long-time favorites of mine.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Popular Detective, March 1936

Now there's a thoroughly bizarre cover for you. I'm not sure what's going on here, but I am certain there are some good authors in this issue of POPULAR DETECTIVE, including Hugh B. Cave, Steve Fisher, Edmond Hamilton, Barry Perowne, Emile C. Tepperman, Frederick C. Painton, and George A. McDonald. If I'd had an extra dime and nickel in my pocket back in 1936, I might've had to buy this one just to try to figure out the cover.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Ace Detective Magazine, August 1936

This is a pretty obscure pulp magazine, but you can't tell that by the top-notch lineup of authors inside: Frederick C. Davis, Steve Fisher, Frederick C. Painton, Norman A. Daniels, Emile C. Tepperman, Dale Clark, and James Perley Hughes. There are some mighty good authors there. I have to confess, I'm not that fond of the cover by J. George Janes, but it's not terrible, just not up to the level of the writers inside.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Crime Busters, February 1938

I'm not too fond of the photo covers on CRIME BUSTERS, but man, look at that line-up of authors! The Lester Dent story is part of his Click Rush, the Gadget Man, series, while Walter B. Gibson, writing as Maxwell Grant, contributes a Norgil the Magician yarn. Ted Tinsley's story features his female private eye, Carrie Cashin. The others are all series stories, too, although, while I certainly know the authors, I'm not familiar with the characters: Steve Fisher (Big Red Brennan), Norvell Page (Dick Barrett), Frank Gruber (Jim Strong), and Norman A. Daniels (Boxcar Reilly). Photo cover or not, I'd sure read this one if I had a copy of it.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Fiction Weekly, November 20, 1937

That's a really striking cover by Rudolph Belarski on this issue of DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY, illustrating a story by a fine writer, John K. Butler. Also in this issue are stories by a couple of top hardboiled writers, Roger Torrey and Steve Fisher, and yarns by long-time pulpsters Edgar Franklin and Fred MacIsaac (writing as Donald Ross this time around). An issue of DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY was the first pulp I ever bought, so I have a definite fondness for the magazine.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Crime Busters, July 1938

Another great cover by Norman Saunders on this issue of CRIME BUSTERS, and look at the line-up of authors: Walter B. Gibson (writing as Maxwell Grant) with a Norgil the Magician story; Lester Dent (a Click Rush, Gadget Man story); Theodore Tinsley (a Carrie Cashin story); Steve Fisher (a Big Red Brennan story); Frank Gruber (a Jim Strong story); Alan Hathway (a Colby Lyman story); and George Allan Moffatt (a Duncan Dean story). Now, I'm not familiar with all those series characters, but I know the authors and know they could be counted on to produce entertaining yarns. And any pulp with Dent, Gibson, Gruber, Tinsley, and Fisher has got to be good reading!

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: The Feds, December 1936

I like this cover, although that gunman's hands seem awfully large. The better to threaten the Feds and paw that babe in the red swimsuit, I guess. There are plenty of good writers in this issue of THE FEDS: Steve Fisher, Norman A. Daniels, Arthur J. Burks, Jean Francis Webb, William G. Bogart, Dale Clark, Laurence Donovan, and Edwin V. Burkholder. Not the top rank of pulp authors, maybe, but a good solid B-team.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Headquarters Detective, September 1936

HEADQUARTERS DETECTIVE is a pulp that lasted only a few issues, but there were some good writers in its pages. This one features stories by Frederick C. Davis, George Harmon Coxe, Steve Fisher, Norman A. Daniels, and George A. McDonald, among others. With a lineup like that, I'm sure it was good reading.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Ace Mystery, May 1936

I have a facsimile reprint of the first issue of ACE MYSTERY MAGAZINE from May 1936 and read it recently. (I don't own the original magazine.) It’s primarily a Weird Menace pulp but it has strong overtones of the mystery and detective pulps as well, and even some supernatural yarns.

It gets off to a strong start with the novella "The Singing Scourge" by Frederick C. Davis. This one involves a beautiful young heiress (is there any other kind?) who’s driven into a killing frenzy by a strange, high-pitched song that comes out of nowhere and that only she can hear. Her fiancé takes on the role of two-fisted detective to find out what’s going on. Most of the action takes place in an isolated mansion and there are a number of sinister characters lurking around, so you’d expect the goings-on to be suitably creepy, and they are. Davis was an excellent writer no matter what the genre. He tells a pretty standard story here but does it very well.

Laurence Hammond’s story concerns an heiress as well. "Death's Heiress", in fact, as the title tells us. She’s a beautiful redhead from Boston who inherits a fortune from her crazy old uncle in New Orleans. But when she arrives she winds up being trapped in an old plantation house with her uncle’s lawyer, Edmond LaRue. (And if you think a lawyer named Edmond LaRue is going to turn out to be bad news...well, you’ve read a pulp story or two in your time, haven’t you?) Despite having a pretty good idea what’s going to happen, Hammond’s writing is atmospheric enough that I enjoyed this story. I haven’t encountered Hammond’s work before, but I’d read more by him.

I don't know anything about Ben George, either, but his story "Cat-Man" is more like something you'd find in WEIRD TALES, rather than a Weird Menace pulp. It's about an artist who has become rich and famous by painting portraits of cats that belong to wealthy members of high society. But when he crosses a Crazy Old Cat Lady (to borrow a term from THE SIMPSONS), he finds himself cursed and believes he's turning into a cat. This is an okay story for the most part, but it's cursed, too—with a really lame ending.

Maitland Scott is better remembered as R.T.M. Scott, the author of the first two novels about The Spider, which were packaged together and reprinted by Berkley Books in the Sixties. I remember buying those and reading them nearly fifty years ago. I recall that I liked them, but that’s about it. Unfortunately, Scott’s novelette in this issue, “Priestess of Pain”, isn’t very good. The protagonist is a would-be writer whose childhood sweetheart marries a friend of his, then apparently dies in a car wreck, then comes back to life as one of the minions of an evil occultist who practically twirls his mustache. The writing is too florid even for a Weird Menace pulp (and that’s saying a lot), and there are some continuity glitches that make me think this might have been rewritten from an earlier, unsold manuscript.

Steve Fisher is the author of some well-regarded hardboiled crime novels, one of which, NO HOUSE LIMIT, was reprinted by Hard Case Crime. His story "Satan's Faceless Henchmen" in this issue is also a crime yarn, although a much more lurid one. It's the tale of a resurrection racket in which a gang of evil monks steals freshly dead corpses and brings them back to life in return for a payment of a quarter of a million dollars. The explanation behind all this is less than convincing, but the pace is fast and the action scenes are good.

"Wolf Vengeance" by Rex Grahame is a backwoods tale about the rivalry between two half-brothers over the beautiful girl they both love. One of the brothers was practically raised by wolves and has a strange affinity with them, and when he disappears it sets a chain of violent events in motion. The twists in this yarn are pretty obvious, but it's well-written, with a nice sense of its swampy locale.

John H. Knox was one of the leading authors of Weird Menace stories, but his contribution to this issue, "The Corpse Queen's Lovers", is a supernatural yarn more like what you'd find in WEIRD TALES. It concerns an archeological expedition in search of artifacts from an ancient religion in the New Mexico hills, and that Southwestern setting gives this story a nice distinction. Naturally enough, what the expedition finds is dangerously evil, and Knox tells the story in smooth, well-written prose.

Paul Ernst is best remembered as the author of the pulp novels featuring The Avenger, but he also wrote a lot of weird fiction and straight mystery tales. "Nightmare House" mixes the two genres effectively. It has some Weird Menace trappings—an eccentric scientist and a gorilla—but it's basically a detective yarn with a beat cop (who would have been played by Ward Bond if this had ever been filmed) serving as the protagonist. A minor but entertaining story.

Hugh B. Cave was one of the pulps' best and most prolific writers, turning out top-notch work in numerous genres for many different magazines. His novelette in this issue, "The Horde of Silent Men", concerns a group of businessmen who are meeting mysterious deaths one by one, until only the son and daughter of two of the men (who had died earlier of natural causes) are left and are threatened by the same doom that claimed the others. Though it's plenty creepy in places, this is really more of a mystery yarn, and the solution is fairly interesting. It's not in the top rank of Cave's work, but it's certainly enjoyable.

As is this entire issue. There are a couple of weak stories, but the ones by Davis and Knox are excellent and the others are well-written. Plus it has a good cover by Howard Sherman. For a hybrid of Weird Menace and mystery pulp, ACE MYSTERY is pretty darned good, based on this issue, and I wouldn't hesitate to read another.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: 5 Detective Novels Magazine, November 1949

A reprint detective pulp from the Thrilling Group. With a reprint magazine, you'd expect a pretty good line-up of authors, and you've got one in this issue: George Harmon Coxe, George Bruce, Ray Cummings, Paul Ernst, Steve Fisher, and Richard Sale. Lots of good reading there, I suspect.