Sunday, April 02, 2017

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: The Phantom Detective, June 1940

I've read reprints of quite a few Phantom Detective novels but have owned only a few issues of the actual pulp over the years. This is one of them, although I don't have a copy at the moment. I'm not sure who the actual author of "The Phantom Hits Murder Steel" is, either, but I recall it being a pretty good story. Other authors in this issue are Ted Coughlan and Ray Cummings. This series isn't as highly regarded as some, and it can be inconsistent because so many different writers contributed Phantom novels, but I enjoyed the ones I've read.
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3 comments:

Christopher Snowden said...

I'd heard so many negative things about the Phantom Detective that it wasn't until a week ago that I read one. I chose "The Emperor of Death," his 1933 debut, and I found it to be terrific. Apart from the engrossing story itself, it was nice to see a 1930s pulp hero who occasionally makes mistakes and feels a whole range of emotions, while still being bold and resourceful enough to earn his place in that pantheon.

5:19 PM, April 02, 2017
James Reasoner said...

Some of the Phantom stories are good action novels, while others are decent mysteries. There is a certain sameness about many of them, especially the ones by Norman Daniels, who was a pretty formulaic writer, but I still enjoy them. I have a collection of them written by Laurence Donovan, and I need to get around to those. Donovan was a pretty entertaining writer.

9:31 PM, April 02, 2017
Scott Ranalli said...

The first one I read, 'The Vampire Murders', was like a drawing room mystery with a pulp hero as the detective. It was quite ho-hum. The second one I tried, 'The Crimes of Fu Kee Wong', was a Chinatown pulp which crackled with action and bloodshed and barreled along at a mile-a-minute. There's a guide book out there, to help you decide which ones are best worth your time!

10:10 AM, April 16, 2017

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