Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Ten Detective Aces, May 1941

Of course it's a clown causing trouble on the cover of this issue of TEN DETECTIVE ACES. You can't trust those guys! Or maybe he's actually the hero, although I wouldn't bet on that. But you can bet that any cover by Norman Saunders will be dramatic and/or action-packed, and this one certainly is. You've got knives, bullets, and blackjacks! (Hmm, "Knives, Bullets, and Blackjacks!" That wouldn't be a bad title.) Anyway, I don't own this issue, but I'm sure that inside its pages, a reader could find plenty of action. Authors include Emile C. Tepperman (twice, with a Marty Quade story under his own name and a story as by Anthony Clemens), Harold Q. Masur (also twice, once as himself and once as Hal Quincy), G.T. Fleming-Roberts, Cyril Plunkett, Joe Archibald, and several authors unfamiliar to me, James A. Kirch, Arthur T. Harris, Clark Frost, and H.F. Sorensen. I really should have read more from TEN DETECTIVE ACES over the years. It looks like a really good detective pulp.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Fiction Weekly, May 14, 1938

This issue of DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY sports a simple but effective cover by Emmett Watson. Inside are stories by some good authors including Judson Philips, William E. Barrett, Lawrence Treat, Arthur Leo Zagat, Edward S. Williams, Cyril Plunkett, and Bert Collier, who's the only one in that group I've never heard of. I've read and enjoyed many stories by Philips and Zagat, Treat had a successful career as a mystery author, and Barrett, although he's remembered for his mystery and aviation pulp stories, is best known as the author of LILIES OF THE FIELD.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Dime Mystery Magazine, January 1945

This issue of DIME MYSTERY MAGAZINE came long after its heyday as a Weird Menace pulp, but judging by the line-up of authors inside, it was still a pretty darned good detective pulp: Fredric Brown, Day Keene, William R. Cox, Robert Turner, Cyril Plunkett, Larry Sternig, and a couple I'm not familiar with, Steve Herrick and Ken Lewis. That's a pretty good cover by Gloria Stoll, too. Cox's story features his series character Tom Kincaid. He expanded some of these stories into full-length novels, but I don't know if this was one of them.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Mystery Book Magazine, Summer 1948

This is a nice dramatic cover on this issue of MYSTERY BOOK MAGAZINE. I don't know the artist. When I spotted it while looking through the Fictionmags Index, I got excited for a minute because this issue features a Mike Shayne story I hadn't heard of, "Murder is a Habit". But a little investigation seems to indicate that it's actually a condensation of the novel BLOOD ON THE STARS. Any confirmation or other information will be much appreciated. Besides the Shayne story, this issue includes yarns by Judson P. Philips, Roy Vickers, Cyril Plunkett, O.B. Myers, Jules Archer, and house-name John L. Benton.

UPDATE: The cover artist is Rudolph Belarski. Thanks to Ed Hulse for that identification. The artwork was recycled for the cover of a Mike Shayne novel, fittingly enough, on BODIES ARE WHERE YOU FIND THEM, Popular Library #192.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Fiction Weekly, October 30, 1937

There's a nice sinister cover on this issue of DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY. I don't want anything to do with that operating room, thank you. Leading off this issue is a novella by T.T. Flynn, one of my favorite Western writers, featuring his series characters Mike Harris and Trixie Meehan. I've never read any of this series, but I expect I'd enjoy it. Other well-known pulpsters on hand are Richard Sale, Dale Clark, Cyril Plunkett, and George Armin Shaftel. Other authors are prolific but little known (to me, anyway) H. Randolph Peacock, Thomas W. Duncan, Donald S. Aitken, and Milo Ray Phelps. I don't think DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY is considered one of the top pulps these days, but there was plenty of good reading in its pages, and a great deal of it has never been reprinted.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Short Stories, April 1941

Are there people who collect covers with hook hands on them? Seems like there must be. I think this cover might be by J.W. Scott, but I'm not really familiar enough with his style to be sure. I'm sure there's a good bunch of authors in this issue of DETECTIVE SHORT STORIES, though: E. Hoffmann Price, Roger Torrey, W.T. Ballard, Edward S. Aarons (under his pseudonym Edward S. Ronns), J. Lane Linklater, Eric Howard, Dale Clark, Cyril Plunkett, and even legendary BLACK MASK editor Joseph T. Shaw under the pseudonym Mark Harper. Hard to go wrong with writers like that.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Mystery Tales, June 1938

MYSTERY TALES is one of the lesser-known Weird Menace pulps, although you certainly couldn't tell that by the talent associated with this issue. The lurid cover is by the great Norman Saunders, and inside are stories by some top pulpsters, including Henry Kuttner, Wyatt Blassingame, John H. Knox, Walter Ripperger, Cyril Plunkett, and Hal K. Wells.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective and Murder Mysteries, March 1939

This is the first issue of a pretty obscure pulp that lasted only a handful of issues. That's a decent cover, and there are some good writers inside: Wayne D. Overholser (best known for his Westerns, of course), Stewart Sterling, Cyril Plunkett, John Wilstach, and Louis Trimble. Then there are authors I've never heard of: Wilcey Earle, Grantly Wallington (who sounds more like a foppish British playboy and whose story in this issue is the luridly titled "The Devil Peddles Reefers!"), and Kenny Kenmare (a house-name). I don't know if DETECTIVE AND MURDER MYSTERIES was any good, but it seems oddball enough to be worth picking up a copy if you ever come across one, which I never have.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Dime Mystery Magazine, March 1947

DIME MYSTERY was long past its Weird Menace phase by the time this issue came out in 1947, but that cover almost looks like it could have been from that earlier era, especially if it had been a little more lurid. And "Death Dance of the Broken Dolls" certainly sounds like a Weird Menace title. It's even by Arthur Leo Zagat, one of the masters of the genre. I believe I have a copy of that story somewhere. I'll have to read it. The rest of this issue's contents appear to be typical late Forties semi-hardboiled detective pulp, although by authors who were good at that: Talmage Powell, Robert Turner, Dale Clark, Cyril Plunkett, and Wilbur S. Peacock.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Yarns, June 1938

This is the first issue of the detective pulp that changed to BLACK HOOD DETECTIVE a few years later. I like that cover, and the line-up of authors inside is pretty darned good, too: Arthur J. Burks with the third and final story in his Harlan Dyce series (the first two ran in CLUES DETECTIVE MAGAZINE in '36 and '37; for what it's worth, I never heard of Harlan Dyce), Norvell Page twice (once as himself, once as N. Wooten Poge), L. Ron Hubbard, Carmony Gove, Cyril Plunkett, and a couple of house-names, Mat Rand and Cliff Campbell. Also, I just like the name DETECTIVE YARNS. Sounds like my kind of pulp.