Review: The Shadowed Circle #8 - Steve Donoso, ed.

THE SHADOWED CIRCLE #8 is out, and it leads off with a fantastic cover by Joe Booth that ties in with Tim DeForest’s excellent article about The Shadow’s battle with the criminal organization known as The Hand that took five issues of the pulp magazine to wrap up. I’ve never read any of those particular novels, but after reading DeForest’s article, I may have to. I can’t say enough good things about Booth’s cover. I think it’s one of my favorite Shadow illustrations ever.

Elsewhere in this issue, Will Murray returns with a lengthy, informative, and entertaining article about the search for the identity of a previously unknown author who ghosted some of the novels about The Phantom Detective. What does that have to do with The Shadow, you ask? Well, quite a bit, as it turns out, since there are indications that this mysterious author may have also written a Shadow novel. It’s a great bit of pulp scholarship on Murray’s part, and for what it’s worth, I agree with the conclusions he comes to.

As editor Steve Donoso points out in his introductory remarks, this issue of THE SHADOWED CIRCLE covers just about all the various aspects of the character. Evan Lewis writes about The Shadow’s guest appearances in Street & Smith comic books other than his own. John Olsen tells us about one of his favorite episodes from the radio show. Robert Kroll examines some material that never made it into the 1994 movie, and I’m intrigued enough by this article that I might have to hunt up a copy of the novelization, which does make use of the scenes Kroll mentions. Nicholas Montelongo also writes about the various movie and television versions of The Shadow, Michael Stradford details the process of having some of the comic books featuring The Shadow bound into collected volumes, and Spencer Draper gives us the lowdown on something I never even knew existed, a pinball machine that ties in with the 1994 movie! There are tie-in pinball machines? I had no idea. The Shadow also makes a cameo appearance in “Dead Air”, a comic strip written and drawn by Ron Hill. Having worked at a small-market radio station myself, I know all about dead air.

Of course, there are fine illustrations throughout, as THE SHADOWED CIRCLE continues to be a beautifully produced journal. If you’re a fan of The Shadow, I’m sure you’re reading it already, but if by some chance you’re not, you should remedy that as soon as possible. THE SHADOWED CIRCLE #8 is available on Amazon or directly from the publisher, and you can subscribe or catch up on back issues on the journal’s website, as well. I don’t know about you, but I’m in the mood to read a Shadow novel now.

Coming Soon: The King of Horror & Other Stories - Stephen Mertz

The complete collection of Stephen Mertz's short fiction. Introduction by Evan Lewis.

The Continental Opposite - Evan Lewis

The Continental Op is one of my all-time favorite characters and has been ever since I was in high school and discovered the paperbacks reprinting the stories that featured him. If you'd asked me, I wouldn't have been sure that anybody could do justice to the character in a pastiche.

But by golly, that's exactly what Evan Lewis has done in his story "The Continental Opposite" in the May issue of ALFRED HITCHCOCK MYSTERY MAGAZINE.

He accomplishes this by doing something very clever. The Op is an important supporting character in this story, but the protagonist and narrator is another operative for Continental in 1953, a young Korean War veteran named Peter Collins (a nod to Dashiell Hammett's early pseudonym Peter Collinson). Collins works for the agency's Portland office and suspects that his boss is crooked. The Old Man, as Collins calls him (but we all know who he really is) is a retired operative sent to get to the bottom of the matter.

This set-up leads to a fast-paced adventure involving local gangsters, political corruption, opium dens, and other good stuff. Lewis doesn't slavishly imitate Hammett but instead tells the story in his own effective, hardboiled style.

"The Continental Opposite" is the first story in a series, and I eagerly await the next one. Highly recommended.

(If your local bookstore or newsstand doesn't carry AHMM, which is entirely possible in this day and age, you can buy single e-book issues or subscribe to the e-book version on Amazon.)

Forbidden River: Wolves of the Wild - Frederick Nebel

I've read plenty of Frederick Nebel's hardboiled detective yarns in my time, beginning nearly 50 years ago with "Winter Kill", a Kennedy and MacBride story in THE HARDBOILED DICKS, the iconic anthology edited by Ron Goulart. I'd never read much of his pure adventure fiction, though, until recently. Tom Roberts of Black Dog Books is publishing several volumes of Nebel's adventure stories, and the first one I've read is FORBIDDEN RIVER.

The collection begins with an excellent introduction by Roberts that provides more information about Nebel's life and career than I've encountered before and concludes with a biographical sketch of Nebel's life by Evan Lewis and a comprehensive bibliography of his fiction compiled by both men. In between are five top-notch novellas that appeared in ACE-HIGH NOVELS, FIVE-NOVELS MONTHLY, and NORTH-WEST STORIES.

The first is "Wolves of the Wild", from the April 1932 issue of ACE-HIGH NOVELS, an action-packed Northern that finds old sourdough Shorty McWhirtle showing up in the mining town of Mushroom City with some gold dust from a legendary lost lode. An all-or-nothing bet with gambler Jim Cameron forms an unlikely alliance between the two men, but Shorty has an ulterior motive: Jim's father was an old friend of his, and he wants to get the young man away from the decadent life in Mushroom City.

This situation leads to a fast-paced blend of murder, mistaken identities, double-crosses, and shootouts in the snow. Nebel never lets the action slow down for very long, but he also keeps a firm hand on the plot and everything ties up neatly.

Every story in this collection is substantial enough to deserve a post of its own, so I'll stop there and just say that FORBIDDEN RIVER is a fine collection of adventure fiction and well worth reading. You can order it directly from the Black Dog Books website.