The Spider #73: The Spider and the Eyeless Legion
How could a man, enslaved and blinded, still strike terror to the hearts of his captors? How could that man, apparently helpless, remain the only hope of a city laid low by crime? Read here how the Master of Men cast off his shackles and led a populace to redemption and vengeance! The most gripping, dramatic Spider novel ever published!
Operator 5 #40: The Suicide Battalion
From friendly but helpless Canada had come the false feint at America’s mighty, steel-armored line. Investigating that strange attack, Operator 5 learned that to save his country from the most astounding invasion in history, he and his volunteer aides must cross the sea to fight a desperate undercover battle with the three bandit nations of the Old World—and, man for man, match American agents against their foes in the grim hope that he might overwhelm a ruthless enemy!
The Camp-Fire: The Complete Correspondence From the Pages of Adventure, 1918-1920
Bequeathed the mantle of “The No. 1 Pulp” by Time Magazine, Adventure Magazine’s editor Arthur Sullivant Hoffman believed that adventure fiction and literary quality need not be mutually exclusive. A core reason for the popularity of Adventure was The Camp-Fire: the letter column which by post-war 1918 blossomed into a lively community comprised of adventurers, outdoorsmen, pioneers, explorers, and Adventure writers as well, all sharing first-hand knowledge of history and life from the late Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries.
This collection includes every installment of The Camp Fire from 1918-1920, totaling 70 complete columns. Each is presented in its original magazine format and includes illustrations by such Adventure contributors as Edward Hopper. And it includes an introduction by Adventure aficionado Thomas Krabacher.
The Complete Adventures of Eric Trent, Volume 2
Donald E. Keyhoe returns to chronicle the super-spy sagas of the high-flying Eric Trent! Running for only 12 stories in the pages of Flying Aces, the series continued Keyhoe’s tradition of fast-paced air war adventures, this time featuring a character who hasn’t seen print since these stories’ original publications! Volume 2 collects the final seven stories from 1941–42: “Squadron of the Dead,” “Lure of the Liberators,” “Death Dives the Douglas,” “Ryan Retribution,” “Death Flies Blind,” “Death Flies the Beam,” and “On Haunted Wings.”
John Solomon, Incognito and The Wisdom of Solomon: The Adventures of John Solomon, Volume 10 (The H. Bedford-Jones Library)
John Solomon, the mysterious ship’s chandler and secret agent, returns in two more rare adventures by author H. Bedford-Jones: “John Solomon, Incognito” and “The Wisdom of Solomon.” Continue the story of John Solomon with this next book in the series, complete & uncut from the pages of People’s Magazine. Includes the original illustrations.
The Masked Marksman #1: Death Takes an Encore
Meet Ed Race who made his trade as a vaudeville gun-juggler supreme, known on stage as “The Masked Marksman” and for handling six loaded .45s to the delight of the crowds. But when this line of work became too tedious, Race took advantage of his multi-state P.I. licenses to solve crimes across the country. This collection includes his first eight stories:
- Amateur Night—for Killers: It looked like Ed Race’s last act when he tried to clean up the plague-spot that was Newbold City, and found himself alone on a blood-stained stage—with Death waiting its entrance cue!
- Cue for a Corpse: Ed Race, vaudeville juggler and high-speed private detective, wasn’t accustomed to finding corpses jammed into his wardrobe trunk. But even a dead body, unknown and unidentified, can lead a man into sinister, twisting paths where death lurks, waiting in the shadows…
- The Death Juggler: It took more than fast forty-fives to buck a crook of Pete Lucie’s stamp… But Ed Race could juggle wits as well as weapons.
- Death’s Spotlight: Ed Race, actor-detective, always managed to get in the spotlight when there was danger around—but the ease of the man from Amsterdam billed him to play a solo stand in a pine coffin…
- Billed for Death!: Ed Race, vaudeville headliner and ace detective, leaped at the chance to help out the manager of the Trout City Theater. But that leap in the dark landed Ed fast in a killer’s net, where the only out for a desperate criminal crew lay in making a corpse of one gun’ juggling detective!
- Death’s Booking Agent: Ed Race awoke in that little mountain town to find that the Great Booking Agent, Death, had billed him to play a star role in the final, fatal drama of life!
- Death Takes an Encore: Ed Race, gun-juggler supreme, heard the crackling of the electric chair as he listened to the police tell him how he had killed his friend. But Race knew that the life of any act may depend on those last few minutes—before the curtain drops!
- Murder in the Spotlight: That bright spotlight revealed to breathless audiences the magic skill of Ed Race, gun-juggler extraordinary. But it also made him a target for a gun that wasn’t juggled—that was trained on him with Death’s own fateful accuracy…
The Spider #72: The Corpse Broker
With terrible swiftness, the Master of the Green Death had struck. His victims lay in the streets, verdant-hued and ghastly—and the Underworld, which he had protected against all reprisal, ran riot in a Manhattan horror-holiday of loot and murder!
The Spider #71: The Spider and the Fire God
The Master of Flame and Burning Death held New York fast in unholy worship of his strange god. For thousands had fled their doomed churches, lest they perish by fire—and the Spider alone remained to face this monstrous cult-leader from hell!
Operator 5 #39: Revolt of the Devil Men
Across ravaged America, exhausted from the long Purple Wars, Operator 5 and his gallant caravan trekked on their errand of mercy, step by step rebuilding once more a mighty nation out of a hopeless ruin—battling to the death a lawless horde that had been released by a Dictator of Doom who planned to transform the prostrate country into a vassal-state that never again was to know liberty!
Ace G-Man #7: Targets for the Flaming Arrow
Klaw, Murdoch, and Kerrigan—AKA the Suicide Squad—are the best the F.B.I. has to offer. Through nearly two dozen adventures, they battled spies, saboteurs, and even super-villains! This collection includes their final four stories:
- MOVE OVER, DEATH!: Kerrigan, Murdoch and Klaw—the fabulous fighting Feds—had finally been given the assignment which no G-man could take—and live! Gladly, with grins on their battle-scarred faces, they walked into the Nazi trap, with blazing guns punctuating their war cry: “Move over, Death!”
- TARGETS FOR THE FLAMING ARROW: They had no clues, nothing but the charred arrow which had snuffed out the life of the American diplomat. But more important, Kerrigan, Murdoch and Klaw had almost no time at all in which to work, for within four days, the Flaming Arrow’s medieval minions were scheduled to destroy America’s vast war effort. Could even the famed Suicide Squad stop this Axis grand coup—before they too became living targets for the Flaming Arrow…?
- BLOOD, SWEAT AND BULLETS: The Ox had America neatly packaged to deliver to Hitler on Christmas morning. And, with only five shopping days left to Christmas, Kerrigan and Murdoch bartered their partner’s life as the price of her freedom. But Steve Klaw found that he had to chase death three thousand miles to seal his bargain—while Kerrigan and Murdoch were helpless save to rush him to his doom!
- THE SUICIDE SQUAD AND THE TWINS OF DEATH!: When Blond Otto The Hangman and his Nazi aides told Murdoch that he would soon join the dead Kerrigan and Klaw, he waited until he did—then added the roar of a dead man’s weapon to the blazing guns of his ghostly pals!
The Spider #70: The Spider and the Slaves of Hell
Out of the shadows of nocturnal Manhattan came the Master of Darkness whose Underworld rule was bloody and absolute. For when this butcher unleashed his Hounds of Hell, defenseless citizens were blown, one by one, into extinction!
Red Finger #1: Second-Hand Death
“Der Rote Finger!” the foreign spy gasped as he came face to face with America’s top agent. Ford Duane, a mild mannered bookstore owner is, in truth, the dreaded Red Finger, top agent of P.A.T., hunter and destroyer of foreign spies. Carrying only a strange gas gun, foreign agents end up dead after they meet this nemesis. His black gloves have one oddity, the trigger finger is painted blood red, giving him the name foreign spies have come to recognize and fear—The Red Finger!
For the first time, all 13 Red Finger stories by Arthur Leo Zagat from the back pages of Operator #5 are collected in one edition, along with the recently-discovered, unpublished finale, “Red Finger and the Murder Trio,” puts closure on this classic series.
The Spider #69: Rule of the Monster Men
Transformed by an Underworld sadist into a city of man-made, outlaw cripples, New York faces the gravest criminal threat of all time. Can the Spider, already robbed of his most loyal assistant, successfully meet this new menace?
Operator 5 #38: The Siege That Brought the Black Death
Against the Mongol hordes on land, and the Purple Fleet, loosing its annihilating bombardment from the sea—New York had fought through the bitter, exhausting siege. Victory, at last, was within the grasp of Operator 5 and his fighting American patriots. Then, from out of the Emperor’s devil cauldron, rose the scourge of the Black Plague!
Solomon’s Son and John Solomon: The Adventures of John Solomon, Volume 9 (The H. Bedford-Jones Library)
John Solomon, the mysterious ship’s chandler and secret agent, returns in two more rare adventures from early in prolific pulp author H. Bedford-Jones’ career: “Pilgrim Solomon” and “John Solomon, Retired.” Continue the story of John Solomon with this next book in the series, complete & uncut from the pages of People’s Magazine. Includes the original illustrations.
The Frontier of Vengeance: The Complete Northwoods Stories of Frederick Nebel, Volume 2
Tales of the Northwest may have been Frederick Nebel’s forte, but sadly these ultra-rare magazines don’t turn up often and as a result, few readers have been able to enjoy these classics. This series—of which most of the stories have never before been reprinted—brings these stories to modern readers, complete, uncut, and in order. Volume 2 contains Nebel’s next 7 stories of this genre, taken from North*West Stories. With an introduction by Rob Preston.
The Return of George Washington (The Argosy Library)
Lawrence Galloway, managing editor of New York tabloid The Daily It, was given the exclusive story of the experiments of Professor J. Hendricks Morgan, whereby he had perfected a system which would resurrect the dead… provided he have access to the subject’s skeleton and a cost of one million dollars. The test subject was decided by the readers of The It, and after the bones of the First American were taken from Mount Vernon, a young man calling himself Colonel Washington stepped from a glass case, asking for General Braddock. How would the world of 1920s America react to the return of George Washington?
The Return of George Washington was one of the main inspirations for the Doc Savage novel Resurrection Day written by Lester Dent, himself a long-time Argosy reader and fan of fellow author George F. Worts.
The Argosy Library #121
Lady of Death: The Complete Cases of Mr. Strang, Volume 1 (The Argosy Library)
Meet Mr. Strang: In his skull is embedded a bullet. Through the underworld glide his lieutenants—men and girls willing to be tortured to death to aid him. He cares nothing for power, nothing for safety. He works for one thing—to crush the evils of parole, and to smash the mysterious, sinister figure who uses the parole system to take desperate criminals from jail, to rob and murder helpless citizens! Collecting the first half of this archetypal pulp superhero series.
The Argosy Library #122
The Corpse Clue: The Complete Cases of Morton & McGarvey, Volume 1 (The Argosy Library)
Prolific pulp fiction author Donald Barr Chidsey’s long-running series about hard-boiled Miami cop Sgt. Wentworth L. McGarvey and his sidekick, Detective Morton, was one of the most popular series to see print in Detective Fiction Weekly magazine in the late 1930s, running over 30 installments. Never before in book form, the Morton & McGarvey series is finally collected in order, along with the original pulp magazine illustrations. Volume 1 contains the first five stories from when the series was originally running in Dime Detective magazine.
The Argosy Library #123
Thirty Days for Henry: The Complete Tales of Sheriff Henry, Volume 6 (The Argosy Library)
Once voted Adventure magazine’s most popular author, W.C. Tuttle introduced the world to one of his longest-running—and most popular—series characters, Henry Harrison Conroy, in the pages of Argosy. Collected here are the next two novels: “Thirty Days For Henry” and “Buckshot for Henry.”
The Argosy Library #124
The Other Man’s Blood: The Complete Cases of the Scientific Club, Volume 1 (The Argosy Library)
One of pulpdom’s most important science fiction authors—Ray Cummings—penned a long-running series of short stories and novels featuring the so-called Scientific Club: a group of New York-based socialites of revolving membership who either recounted tales of fantastic science… or were directly involved in them. This edition collects the first five hard-to-find Scientific Club short stories, complete and uncut.
The Argosy Library #125
The Immortals (The Argosy Library)
Brilliant and youthful scientist Charles Deane has discovered a new element, Stratium, which is lighter than air. Upon presenting this new discovery to a learned society of chemists, a sample of Stratium has gone missing and Deane’s leading critic, Cairns, is murdered. What is the connection between Stratium and a secret society’s obsession with Ichor, the so-called “fluid of the immortal gods?” An Argosy science fiction classic, out of print for decades—until now.
The Argosy Library #126
Sting of the Blue Scorpion: The Adventures of Peter the Brazen, Volume 6 (The Argosy Library)
In 1930, Argosy Magazine brought back several of their most popular series characters, and that list was headlined by Peter the Brazen. The two stories collected in Volume 6 showcases an even more action-oriented series compared to the earlier stories, and are considered by pulp readers as among the best stories to ever appear in Argosy. Written by George F. Worts under his primary pen-name, Peter the Brazen made a marked impression on Argosy reader Lester Dent when he co-created Doc Savage. Included in Volume 6 are the next two stories in the series: “Sting of the Blue Scorpion” and “The Master Magician.”
The Argosy Library #127
Ammunition Up: The Complete Adventures of Cordie, Soldier of Fortune, Volume 5 (The Argosy Library)
The sagas of Jimmie Cordie and his crew of soldiers of fortune were among Argosy Magazine’s most popular series when it was brought to that magazine during its early ’30s renaissance by writer W. Wirt. Quite clearly an inspiration for the creation of Doc Savage, this edition collects his next three adventures which originally appeared in Argosy in 1933–34: “Ammunition Up!,” “The White War Lords,” and “The Mad Monks.”
The Argosy Library #128
The Under Dogs: The Complete Cases of Madame Storey, Volume 3 (The Argosy Library)
Femme fatale Mme. Rozika Storey was one of the most popular series characters in the pages of Argosy during the 1920s–30s. These detective stories are fast-paced adventures which pushed Madame Storey’s masterful deductive skills to the limit. Volume 3 contains the next two stories in the series: “The Steerers” and “The Under Dogs,” along with the original pulp illustrations. Also including an introduction by pulp historian Robert Sampson.
The Argosy Library #129
The Fifth Gate: The Complete Cases of Tug Norton, Volume 1 (The Argosy Library)
One of the most popular private detective series from the pages of Flynn’s Detective Fiction is finally collected in book form. Author Edward Parrish Ware’s stories of former-cowboy-turned detective Tug Norton ran for nearly 50 short stories and novelettes which recounted the cases of the Kaw Valley Detective Bureau of Kansas City, and are frequently considered some of the best hard-boiled detective stories so see print in Flynn’s. Volume 1 contains the first six stories, along with all of the original illustrations.
The Argosy Library #130
The Complete Cases of Johnny Cass (The Dime Detective Library)
One of Black Mask editor Joe Shaw’s “Black Mask Boys,” author Roger Torrey haunted the pages of that venerable magazine for a half decade. Considered by his peers as amongst the top tier of Black Mask writers alongside Raymond Chandler, Torrey was on top of his game in the mid-1930s. As fellow Black Mask scribe Steve Fisher remarked, [Torrey was] “probably one of the finest writers Black Mask ever had.” However, Torrey made a brief foray to Black Mask’s chief rival, Dime Detective, to pen the tales of Los Angeles private eye Johnny Cass, written in Torrey’s classic gritty, hard-bitten style. Only running five stories, this edition collects the entire series, along with the one other story Torrey wrote for Dime Detective in this same period, “Curtains for Five.” Rounded out by an authoritative introduction by pulp historian Will Murray, The Complete Cases of Johnny Cass is the most important hard-boiled detective story to see print in years.
The Complete Cases of Jim Bennett, Volume 1 (The Dime Detective Library)
Cleveland private detective Jim Bennett appeared in over 20 stories in the pages of Dime Detective and other Popular Publications pulps of the late 1940s and early 50s. Noted as one of the few pulp P.I.s to actually be in a relationship, these stories are some of the most refined detective stories of the post-war era, as the influence of the noir movies of the era greatly influenced their plots and styling. The Complete Cases of Jim Bennett, Volume 1 contains the first four stories, along with all of the original pulp illustrations.
The Complete Cases of Needle Mike, Volume 2 (The Dime Detective Library)
A millionaire playboy with a yen for excitement, young Ken McNally disguises himself as the gray-haired, gold-toothed, jaundiced-looking proprietor of a seedy tattoo parlor in the “tenderloin” district of St. Louis. His unusual occupation frequently brings him into contact with underworld denizens who, willingly or accidentally, embroil him in criminal activities.
Written by William E. Barrett, Needle Mike found himself embroiled in nearly 20 hard-boiled mysteries originally published between 1935 and 1938 in the pages of Dime Detective, the prestigious crime pulp second only to the legendary Black Mask in its impact on the genre. The Complete Cases of Needle Mike, Volume 2 contains the next four stories: “The Tattooed Chain,” “The Tattooed Cop,” “The Tattooed Circle,” and “The Tattooed Chinaman.”
The Complete Cases of Carter Cole, Volume 1 (The Dime Detective Library)
Brilliant psychiatrist Doctor Carter Cole often investigates crimes that seem to be supernatural in nature. Using his medical training to discern the mental states of suspects he interrogates, making deductions based on the quirks manifest in their behavior, and is aided in his cases by identical-twin nurses. Written by Frederick C. Davis, this edition collects the first half of the series: “The Case of the Crimson Claws,” “The Case of the Skinned Men,” “The Case of the Crazy Witness,” “The Case of the Silent Giantess,” and “The Case of the Queen’s Headsman.”