A Rough Edges Rerun Review: Ringmaster of Doom - Brant House (G.T. Fleming-Roberts) (Secret Agent X, November 1935)

When you saw the title RINGMASTER OF DOOM and the by-line Brant House, you probably thought, “Hey, a Secret Agent X novel about the circus!” I know that’s the first thing that went through my mind. Well, as it turns out, this is a Secret Agent X novel, all right, from the November 1935 issue of the pulp magazine of the same name, but there’s no sign of a circus. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a good pulp yarn.

This one finds New York City being terrorized by a series of robberies and kidnappings being carried out by brutal, misshapen fiends who look like Neanderthal men. (And speaking of Neanderthals terrorizing modern-day America, I believe there’s a Spider novel by Norvell Page that features the same sort of menace.) Naturally, Secret Agent X has to investigate, and he starts at a fabulous society party being hosted by one of the rich men targeted for kidnapping. While he’s there he has his first violent encounter with one of the beast-men and also runs into a beautiful, redheaded, evil female spy he first crossed swords with during the Great War. From there it’s one breathless adventure after another as the Agent battles the schemes of the mysterious mastermind who calls himself Thoth, after the Egyptian god of the dead, and even wears an ibis-headed mask to make himself look like Thoth.

You know by now whether or not you love this stuff or think it’s just about the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard of. And you know which camp I fall into. You’ve got your Neanderthals serving as henchmen for a criminal genius. You’ve got said criminal genius lashing his prisoners with an electric whip. You’ve got Secret Agent X escaping death-trap after death-trap by the skin of his teeth. And finally you’ve got a battle royal in a network of abandoned sewers along the East River that’s being flooded. There’s not much time to take a breath in this one, and that’s good, of course, because it is wildly, unabashedly, and wonderfully goofy.

But no circus. That setting was a staple of pulp yarns. I don’t know if any of the Secret Agent X novels takes place in a circus, but it would have been a good setting for the Agent to have an adventure. As it is, RINGMASTER OF DOOM is a lot of fun.

(This post originally appeared on August 6, 2010. Since then, this novel has been reprinted in Volume 5 of SECRET AGENT "X": THE COMPLETE SERIES, published by Altus Press. It's still available in a handsome trade paperback edition from Amazon.)

A Rough Edges Rerun Review: Kingdom of Blue Corpses - Brant House (?)

“Kingdom of Blue Corpses”, from the December 1935 issue of the pulp SECRET AGENT X, is one of the more oddball entries in the series. It’s very comic-booky (if that’s a word), with a master villain who calls himself the Blue Streak and wears a blue rubber suit, somewhat like a frogman’s outfit, emblazoned with a lightning bolt. His minions – every self-respecting master villain has to have minions, of course – wear black rubber suits that look even more like frogmen and drive around in a sinister black hearse. The Blue Streak’s weapon in his campaign of terror is an electrical cannon that fires lightning bolts, and as a side effect, the corpses of the people struck by it turn bright blue. No explanation is forthcoming for this side effect, but that’s all right. This yarn isn’t very rigorously plotted, even by pulp standards.

Which doesn’t mean it’s not a lot of fun, as Secret Agent X tries to bring the Blue Streak to justice in a series of extremely fast-moving, action-packed confrontations. As usual, “X” employs several different disguises, and his girlfriend/assistant, beautiful blond reporter Betty Dale, even gets in on the act this time, as “X” disguises her so she can take the place of a young woman he suspects of being involved with the Blue Streak.

The actual identity of the author behind the “Brant House” house-name on this one hasn’t been established, as far as I know. The first part of the story reads like it could be by Paul Chadwick, the creator of the Secret Agent X character and the principal author in the series in its early years. The style changes somewhat during the course of the story, becoming more terse and action-oriented, which has led some readers to speculate that maybe Chadwick started the novel and from some unknown reason, another author finished it. This seems possible to me as well, but at this point, we just don’t know. Whoever wrote “Kingdom of Blue Corpses” did a good job of keeping things moving, even if they don’t always make complete sense.

(Since this post originally appeared in a somewhat different form on May 28, 2010, "Kingdom of Blue Corpses" has been reprinted twice, once by Adventure House and once by Altus Press. The Altus Press edition includes several other Secret Agent X novels. In the comments on the original post, there was some discussion about who actually wrote this one. Some pulp scholars lean toward G.T. Fleming-Roberts, while others think it might be the work of Paul Chadwick. Based on my reading of the story at the time, I even suggested that Chadwick may have started it and Fleming-Roberts completed it. I honestly don't know the answer, but you pays your money and you takes your choice!)

A Rough Edges Rerun Review: Secret Agent X: Faceless Fury - Brant House (G.T. Fleming-Roberts)

I’ve been in a pulpish mood lately, and one of the things I’ve read is the Secret Agent X novel FACELESS FURY, from the April 1936 issue of the Secret Agent X pulp.

This series ran for 41 issues, and I’ve probably read more than half the novels. One of the consistent problems with Secret Agent X is that, as you might guess from his name, he’s pretty much of a cipher. We never learn his real name or much about his background. We don’t even know what he really looks like because he’s always in disguise. He could be anybody. And yet the novels are usually entertaining because of the bizarre plots and fast pacing.

In FACELESS FURY, which was written by G.T. Fleming-Roberts under the house-name Brant House, the bizarre elements are certainly in place. You’ve got a criminal mastermind with his head completely covered in bandages except for the eyes, which, oh by the way, shoot out an acid so powerful that it’ll completely eat away a man’s face in seconds; you’ve got a similarly bandaged amnesia victim in a sanitarium who may or may not be the mastermind; and you’ve got multiple murder victims found clutching children’s toy blocks in their hands. Not to mention forgers, gentleman jewel thieves, dope fiends, and beautiful actresses with sinister secrets. For a while this seems like a kitchen sink novel, with Fleming-Roberts throwing in every wild thing he can think of whether it makes any sense or not, but by the end of the novel he succeeds it tying it all together fairly neatly. It’s very easy to figure out who the killer really is, but you don’t read this kind of story for the mystery angle, anyway. At least I don’t.

Although Fleming-Roberts didn’t create the Secret Agent X character, he wrote more of the novels than anyone else and is considered by some pulp fans to be the series’ best author. I sort of prefer the stories by Paul Chadwick, the creator of the character, but I like Fleming-Roberts’ work, too, and FACELESS FURY is one of his best entries, well worth checking out if you’re a fan of the hero pulps. Not a bad place to start if you’re a pulp fan and have never read a Secret Agent X novel, either.

(This post originally appeared in a somewhat different form on December 18, 2007. Altus Press has reprinted the entire Secret Agent X series in a series of beautiful trade paperback volumes. "Faceless Fury" is available on Amazon in Volume 6 of that series.)

A Rough Edges Rerun: Secret Agent X: The Sinister Scourge - Brant House (Paul Chadwick)

Like a lot of other stories from the hero pulps, the Secret Agent X novels often feature some mysterious criminal mastermind who wears a mask or a hood or some such. There’s usually some bizarre murder method as well. Those elements appear in this novel, but for once, they’re actually minor. For the pulps, THE SINISTER SCOURGE, from the January 1935 issue of SECRET AGENT X, is pretty realistic. This time around, the Agent is engaged in a grim, gritty battle against a drug smuggling ring that’s flooding the country with a new super-drug. The main touch of typically over-the-top pulp business is the Agent’s uncanny ability to craft perfect disguises as a moment’s notice. Mostly it’s gun battles and fistfights as the Agent works his way higher and higher up the chain of command in the drug ring. At times this yarn reminded me a little of a Mack Bolan novel as Secret Agent X takes on organized crime.

The author behind the Brant House pseudonym this time around is Paul Chadwick, the creator of the Secret Agent X character. Chadwick is best known for his novels in this series, as well as a series of novelettes about investigator Wade Hammond that ran in the pulp TEN DETECTIVE ACES. His prose has a sweaty, breathless, almost overwrought quality to it that makes it easy to distinguish, and it works better than usual in THE SINISTER SCOURGE. There are also some welcome touches of wry humor amidst all the blood and thunder. While this novel isn’t really all that typical of the Secret Agent X series, it’s also one of the best I’ve read featuring the character.

A number of Secret Agent X novels were reprinted in the Sixties by Corinth/Regency, an offshoot of the publishing empire founded by William Hamling that also put out Nightstand Books, Midnight Readers, etc., the line of sort-core novels written pseudonymously by Lawrence Block, Donald E. Westlake, Robert Silverberg, Evan Hunter, Harry Whittington, and many other authors. Below is the cover from that Corinth paperback reprint. The art is by Robert Bonfils, who provided many of the covers for books published by Hamling.

(This post originally appeared in a somewhat different form on May 8, 2009. It's been a good while since I read a Secret Agent X novel. There are only 42 novels in the series and I've probably read more than half of them, but there are still some I need to check out. I really ought to do that.)