Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: 10-Story Detective Magazine, March 1942

Nobody could pack more into a pulp cover than Norman Saunders, as this issue of 10-STORY DETECTIVE MAGAZINE illustrates. Another Norman, Norman A. Daniels, has two stories in this issue, one under his own name and one as David A. Norman. Bruno Fischer is on hand under his Russell Gray pseudonym. Harold Q. Masur, later very successful as a mystery novelist, has a story in this issue, as does an author I'm not familiar with, Richard L. Hobart. The other stories all have house-names on them: Guy Fleming, Leon Dupont, Clint Douglas, Ralph Powers, and Harris Clivesey. It wouldn't surprise me if some of those guys were actually Norman A. Daniels, too.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Super-Detective, January 1943

I don’t own this issue, or, for that matter, any issues of SUPER-DETECTIVE. They’re not that easy to find, and they’re usually pretty expensive when you do come across one. But when Radio Archives recently published an e-book edition of this issue, I picked it up because I wanted to read the Jim Anthony novel in it. The by-line on that novel is John Grange, but that was a house-name, and in this case, I knew that two excellent authors collaborated on the story: Robert Leslie Bellem and W.T. Ballard.

For those of you unfamiliar with Jim Anthony, here’s a little background. His father was an Irish adventurer, his mother a Comanche princess. He’s a millionaire industrialist with business interests all over the world, an amateur criminologist, a brilliant scientist, and a world-class athlete. He’s Doc Savage, Bruce Wayne, and Jim Thorpe rolled into one. Veteran pulpster Victor Rousseau wrote the first dozen Jim Anthony novels in SUPER-DETECTIVE, Edwin Truett Long did the next three, and then friends and sometime writing partners Bellem and Ballard wrote ten more novels to finish off the series. “Murder Between Shifts” in this issue is the fourth entry by Bellem and Ballard. In Rousseau’s stories, he portrayed Jim Anthony as more of a globe-trotting adventurer, the Doc Savage part of the character. I’d read that Bellem and Ballard’s novels had more of a mystery angle, concentrating on Jim Anthony’s efforts as a criminologist. I was eager to read one and find out.

“Murder Between Shifts” finds Jim visiting Los Angeles with his pilot and sidekick Tom Gentry. Jim owns an aircraft plant there that’s doing vital work for the war effort, but there are rumors of trouble he’s checking out, and sure enough, when he tracks down the plant manager to a nightclub that caters to the swing shift workers, the man is murdered right in front of Jim’s eyes by one of the other plant executives. The thing is, the guy who pulled the trigger claims he’s innocent! Jim investigates, of course, which leads to attempts on his own life along with sensuous encounters with several beautiful babes. (SUPER-DETECTIVE was published by the same company that put out the Spicy pulps, so it’s a little more risque than some, although mild by our current standards.) Even though Jim is still the same tycoon/scientist/criminologist he is in the earlier novels by Victor Rousseau, “Murder Between Shifts” does read much more like a typical hardboiled detective yarn than Rousseau’s novels do. It’s well-written, clever enough, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It also features a cameo appearance by police lieutenant Dave Donaldson, from Bellem’s Dan Turner series, which put a grin on my face.

William B. Rainey, author of the short story “Don’t Get Killed Tonight”, was really Wyatt Blassingame, best remembered probably for his Weird Menace stories although he was a prolific pulpster who wrote a little bit of everything and wrote it well. “Don’t Get Killed Tonight” is part of his series about private detective Eddie Harveth, who works as a troubleshooter for nightclub and restaurant owners in New Orleans. It’s a good story in which Eddie gets framed for the murder of a beautiful dancer and has to go on the run from the cops as he tracks down the real killer. There’s nothing unusual or special about this story, but it’s competently written and moves right along. A tad on the forgettable side, though.

Randolph Barr was a house-name, and the real author of “The Shape of Death” is unknown, which is a shame because it really is a top-notch story featuring some fine hardboiled writing. A beautiful blonde living in a Florida trailer camp finds a dead man on her doorstep. Unfortunately, he’d made a pass at her a short time earlier in a nearby tavern, and she was heard to threaten him. The cops believe he followed her back to her trailer and she killed him, possibly in self-defense. The only one who believes she’s innocent is a young reporter who falls for her. The plot of this one is pretty traditional and even predictable, but it races along with plenty of good dialogue and excellent descriptions. I liked it a lot and wish I knew who wrote it.

The other stories in this issue are all unacknowledged reprints, a practice for which the publisher was notorious, beginning with “Carte Blanche for Murder” by Travis Lee Stokes, which was published originally as “Blonde Madness” in the September 1934 issue of SPICY DETECTIVE STORIES under the name Arthur Humbolt, which was also a pseudonym. The real author was Robert C. Blackmon, who wrote a bunch of detective yarns for various pulps, under numerous different names. It opens with its newspaper reporter protagonist discovering the murdered body of a beautiful blonde with her arms chopped off. Naturally, this ties in with the case of another blonde who was killed and had her legs chopped off. And our hero’s girlfriend is a beautiful blonde and has a connection with one of the suspects! As you can tell, this story is lurid and over the top and you know exactly what’s going on almost right from the start, but Blackmon delivers it in such breathless, enthusiastic prose that it’s enjoyable despite that.

Norman A. Daniels is the actual author of “Murder Stays at Home”, published in this issue under the name Max Neilson. It was published originally as “Murder at Lake Iroquois” by Charles Maxwell in the September 1934 issue of SPICY DETECTIVE STORIES. This one finds a bunch of theater folks and artists partying at the island mansion of a wealthy producer, and of course one of them winds up dead, seemingly an open-and-shut case of a beautiful actress murdering a rival beautiful actress. That’s not how it turns out, and the murder method is actually pretty clever. Daniels was dependable and this story is good entertainment without being outstanding.

“Post Mortem” by Walton Grey was published originally in the August 1934 issue of SPICY DETECTIVE STORIES as “Where is the Body?”, under the author’s real name, C. Samuel Campbell. It’s even more lurid and over-the-top than “Carte Blanche for Murder” as we have two police detectives running around a stereotypical old dark house complete with secret passages and a hulking monster who’s breaking people’s necks. This one is almost too silly for me to accept it, but it has its effective moments and I wound up reading the whole thing.

Looking back on the issue as a whole, it’s certainly entertaining. The Jim Anthony story and “The Shape of Death” by “Randolph Barr” are the highlights. I definitely want to read more of Bellem and Ballard’s Jim Anthony stories. Several of them, including “Murder Between Shifts”, are reprinted in SUPER-DETECTIVE JIM ANTHONY, THE COMPLETE SERIES: VOLUME 5 from Steeger Books. Not surprisingly, I’ve already ordered a copy. But if you want to sample the series, this e-book from Radio Archives isn’t a bad place to start.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Thrilling Adventures, December 1933

The cover on this issue of THRILLING ADVENTURES was done by Emmett Watson, an artist I associate more with the Munsey pulps, but it's a fine, dynamic Foreign Legion scene that I like quite a bit. Inside this issue are stories by Johnston McCulley (his first Whirlwind story; I have the Altus Press volume that reprints the entire series and really need to get around to reading it), Oscar Schisgall, Allan K. Echols, Bob du Soe, George Allan Moffatt (really Edwin V. Burkholder), Ralph R. Fleming (who published only a handful of stories), Captain Kerry McRoberts (probably Norman A. Daniels), and house-name Jackson Cole. I'll bet if I had a copy of this issue, which I don't, I'd enjoy the stories every bit as much as the cover.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Thrilling Detective, May 1934

This issue of THRILLING DETECTIVE sports a creepy, eye-catching cover by Rafael DeSoto. The lineup of authors inside is a strong one: George Harmon Coxe, Johnston McCulley, Norman A. Daniels, George Fielding Eliot, Wayne Rogers, Joe Archibald, and George Allan Moffatt, who was really Edwin V. Burkholder. I don't own this issue, but I think it would be well worth reading if I did.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Top-Notch Detective, September 1938

TOP-NOTCH DETECTIVE lasted for only three issues, of which this is the first one. That cover has enough going on that I thought at first it might be by Norman Saunders, but it's actually by J.W. Scott. The fact that this pulp didn't last long couldn't be due to the quality of the authors in its pages. This issue features stories by Cleve F. Adams, Arthur J. Burks, G.T. Fleming-Roberts, Edward Ronns (Edward S. Aarons), Norman A. Daniels, Henry Treat Sperry, and Orlando Rigoni, as well as a number of other, lesser-known authors. That's a pretty strong lineup and an indication of a pulp worth reading.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Rangeland Romances, March 1955

A very late issue of this long-running pulp that debuted in 1937. The cover is by Frank McCarthy, an artist I associate more with paperback covers. The pulp era may have been winding down, but there are new stories in this issue by such long-time pulpsters as Norman Daniels, Arthur Lawson, Theodore J. Roemer, and Kenneth L. Sinclair, as well as a reprint by the prolific Western romance author Isabel Stewart Way. Pretty close to a last gasp (there was only one more issue of RANGELAND ROMANCES after this one) but I'll bet it was fairly entertaining.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Novels Magazine, February 1939

That looks like a Richard Lyons cover to me, but I could certainly be wrong about that. This issue of DETECTIVE NOVELS MAGAZINE has stories by some fine authors in it. The lead novella is by the always entertaining E. Hoffmann Price, and there's also a novella by Norman A. Daniels, who's almost as dependable as Price. Three short stories round out the issue. The three authors responsible for those are Donald Bayne Hobart (with an entry from his long-running series about private eye Mugs Kelly); a pulpster I haven't heard of, Avin H. Johnston, who wrote more than two dozen detective, Western, and adventure yarns for various pulps; and John L. Benton, a Thrilling Group house-name who was probably Daniels in this case but might have been Hobart. I don't own a copy of this pulp, but it looks like it would be enjoyable reading if I did.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Novels Magazine, October 1940

I don't know who did this cover, but the guy in the eyepatch is certainly sinister-looking. It's safe to say that Norman A. Daniels wrote more than half of this issue since both of the lead "novels" are by him: a Crimson Mask story under the pseudonym Frank Johnson and a Candid Camera Kid story under the pseudonym John L. Benton. I really like the Candid Camera Kid series. The Crimson Mask stories are about two-fisted pharmacist and part-time crimefighter Robert "Doc" Clarke. I've read one or two of them and they're okay, slickly written as always with Daniels' work. Other stories in this issue are by the prodigiously prolific Arthur J. Burks, a forgotten pulpster named Robert Gordon, and Rod Brink, whose story here is his only credit in the Fictionmags Index. He may well have been Norman Daniels, too. 

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Exciting Mystery, Winter 1943

That's a pretty lurid cover. I don't know the artist. This is the second issue of a very short-lived pulp. EXCITING MYSTERY lasted only three issues. There are some good authors in this issue, including Norman A. Daniels (twice, once as himself and once as Lew Martin), my old mentor Sam Merwin Jr., Dixon Wells (actually writer/editor Samuel Mines), and house name Robert Wallace, who could have been any of those three or somebody else entirely. I'm not sure why EXCITING MYSTERY wasn't as successful as the other Thrilling Group pulps. Looks like good reading to me.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Ten Detective Aces, November 1942

For some reason, I've always liked those TEN DETECTIVE ACES covers with the red borders around them. It's a nice distinctive look. And I always love Norman Saunders covers. This one is no exception. Great action and details and that's a really good-looking woman. The stories inside are by some authors who ain't half-bad, either: Frederick C. Davis, Walker A. Tompkins, Norman A. Daniels, Harold Q. Masur, Joe Archibald, Lee E. Well, Stuart Friedman, plus a couple I hadn't heard of, Ken Kessler and Jimmy O'Brien, plus house name Guy Fleming. A couple of those authors, Tompkins and Wells, are best known as Western writers, but Davis and Archibald wrote quite a few Westerns, too, and Daniels did a few.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Popular Detective, June 1943

Well, that's certainly a creepy cover. I don't know the artist, but this issue of POPULAR DETECTIVE caught my eye, so he did his job. The Dr. Zeng novella by "Walt Bruce" is actually by W.T. Ballard and Robert Leslie Bellem. Also on hand in this issue are Norman A. Daniels, Dale Clark, Joe Archibald, William Morrison (really Joseph Samachson, the guy who created the Martian Manhunter for DC Comics), Lee Fredericks, and Ted Coughlan. Not an all-star line-up, maybe, but I'll bet it's a pretty entertaining issue. The Dr. Zeng story, along with the others in that series, has been reprinted by Steeger Books in the volume DR. ZENG ARCHIVES. I have a copy but have never read it. One of these days . . .

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Novels, June 1944

Both stories featured on the cover of this issue of DETECTIVE NOVELS are by Norman A. Daniels, a stand-alone novella under his own name and a novella in the Candid Camera Kid series as by John L. Benton. Other authors in this issue include Oscar J. Friend (perhaps better known as an agent) writing as Owen Fox Jerome and lesser-known pulpsters Hal White and W. Fredric Kruger. I don't know the cover artist, but that guy looks suitably menacing. In 1944, I doubt if that little mustache was a coincidence, although he doesn't look like Hitler in any other respect.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Black Book Detective Magazine, June 1937

Norman Saunders covers are always full of action and detail, and this one on the June 1937 issue of BLACK BOOK DETECTIVE MAGAZINE is no exception. This was the final issue of this pulp from Ranger Publications. It was relaunched ten months later by Better Publications (the Thrilling Group) and a little more than a year after that became the home of the series character The Black Bat. The Ranger Publications version didn't fail because of the covers or the authors it published. There are only four stories in this issue, and they're by Philip Ketchum, Norman A. Daniels, Robert Sidney Bowen, and Allan K. Echols, all of them top-notch pulpsters.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Novels Magazine, December 1939

It's safe to say that Norman A. Daniels wrote more than half of this issue of DETECTIVE NOVELS MAGAZINE, since he has two novellas in it, one under his own name and an entry in his excellent Candid Camera Kid series as John L. Benton. In addition, there's a story by house-name J.S. Endicott, which might well be Daniels, too, and a story by an author named Temple Franklin who has only one credit in the Fictionmags Index, so that might be a Daniels pseudonym, too. We'll probably never know. The other author in this issue is the little known but apparently real Arthur W. Phillips. I don't know who did the cover art, but the scene has a lot going on and I like it.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Mystery Book Magazine, Fall 1948

I don't care much for falling covers. They give me the creeps. But I'll admit, this one by Rudolph Belarski is pretty effective. And there's an excellent group of writers in this issue of MYSTERY BOOK MAGAZINE, too: Fredric Brown, Patrick Quentin, Helen Reilly, Norman A. Daniels, Robert C. Dennis, and house-name Robert Wallace, who, if I had to guess, in this instance was probably Daniels, as well.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Thrilling Detective, February 1951

I'm used to seeing Sam Cherry's covers on Western pulps, but he also did a lot of work in other genres, and on paperback covers, as well. Here's one on an issue of THRILLING DETECTIVE, and I like it a lot. Inside are stories by Stewart Sterling, Norman A. Daniels (writing as Wayland Rice), D.L. Champion, house-names John L. Benton and Robert Wallace (who might well be either Sterling or Daniels in this case), and little known authors B.J. Benson and Burt Sims.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Strange Stories, December 1940

The Weird Menace boom was over by the end of 1940, but STRANGE STORIES, a semi-Weird Menace pulp from the Thrilling Group was still hanging on. This is a good cover, a little reminiscent of the Spicy pulps. Good-looking girls sure had trouble keeping their clothes intact in those days. There are some good writers in this issue: Seabury Quinn, Norman A. Daniels, Don Alviso, Alexander Samalman. As well as some I've never heard of: Dorothy Quick, Joseph H. Hernandez, George J. Rawlins, and Dr. Arch Carr. Unusual to see a doctor using his title in a pulp magazine, but there you go. I wonder if he was a medical doctor. David H. Keller was always billed as David H. Keller, M.D.

UPDATE: The cover artist was the great Earle Bergey, who did six covers for STRANGE STORIES during its 13-issue run.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Thrilling Detective, January 1934

There are skeletons on this THRILLING DETECTIVE cover by Rafael DeSoto. That's appropriate enough for the day after Halloween, right? Inside are some top-notch authors, including Norman A. Daniels, Johnston McCulley, Arthur J. Burks, Lawrence A. Keating, Thrilling Group house-name C.K.M. Scanlon (if I had to guess, really Keating or Daniels), and little-known authors Barry Brandon and Walter A. Sinclair.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Ace Detective Magazine, August 1936

This is a pretty obscure pulp magazine, but you can't tell that by the top-notch lineup of authors inside: Frederick C. Davis, Steve Fisher, Frederick C. Painton, Norman A. Daniels, Emile C. Tepperman, Dale Clark, and James Perley Hughes. There are some mighty good authors there. I have to confess, I'm not that fond of the cover by J. George Janes, but it's not terrible, just not up to the level of the writers inside.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Crime Busters, February 1938

I'm not too fond of the photo covers on CRIME BUSTERS, but man, look at that line-up of authors! The Lester Dent story is part of his Click Rush, the Gadget Man, series, while Walter B. Gibson, writing as Maxwell Grant, contributes a Norgil the Magician yarn. Ted Tinsley's story features his female private eye, Carrie Cashin. The others are all series stories, too, although, while I certainly know the authors, I'm not familiar with the characters: Steve Fisher (Big Red Brennan), Norvell Page (Dick Barrett), Frank Gruber (Jim Strong), and Norman A. Daniels (Boxcar Reilly). Photo cover or not, I'd sure read this one if I had a copy of it.