Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Big-Book Detective Magazine, February 1942

I've read several issues of BIG-BOOK WESTERN MAGAZINE over the years, but I've never read or even seen an issue of BIG-BOOK DETECTIVE MAGAZINE, Popular Publications' attempt to launch another detective pulp. Unlike its Western cousin, BIG-BOOK DETECTIVE MAGAZINE wasn't successful and ran only eight issues from December 1941 to February 1943. This is the second issue, and based on the good cover (don't know who painted it) and the lineup of authors, the magazine's failure wasn't warranted based on its quality. Authors on hand in this issue are T.T. Flynn, W.T. Ballard, Russell Gray (actually Bruno Fischer), Robert Sidney Bowen, Jackson Gregory Jr., and house-names Daniel Winters, Ray P. Shotwell, and David Crewe. The thing about those house-names is that this being Popular Publications, the actual authors were probably pretty darned good. 

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Dare-Devil Aces, July 1937

Man, Frederick Blakeslee could really pack a lot into an air-war pulp cover! Nine planes (assuming I didn't miss any), plus a bunch of ack-ack bursts in the air and bombs going off on the ground. I think this scene does a great job of conveying the controlled chaos of aerial combat in World War I. Inside, this issue features three authors I associate more with Westerns: Orlando Rigoni, Claude Rister, and William O'Sullivan. Also on hand are aviation pulp stalwarts Robert Sidney Bowen and Darrell Jordan, house-names William Hartley and Larry Jones, and Fred Flabb, which I suspect is this little-published author's real name, because it doesn't sound like what you'd come up with as a pseudonym.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Dime Detective Magazine, July 1936

Walter Baumhofer did some great covers for DIME DETECTIVE during this era, and here's another of 'em. The lineup of authors in this issue is top-notch, as well: Carroll John Daly with a Vee Brown story, T.T. Flynn, Frederick C. Davis, William E. Barrett, and Robert Sidney Bowen. Excellent writers, every one of them. DIME DETECTIVE was a consistently superb pulp during the mid-Thirties. 

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Popular Detective, November 1937

I don't know who did the cover on this issue of POPULAR DETECTIVE, but it's intriguing. And they definitely want you to that there's a Charlie Chan story in this issue, since it's mentioned twice. However (and that's a big however), it's not a lost tale by Chan creator Earl Derr Biggers, who died four years earlier in 1933. No, this story featuring Charlie Chan was written by journeyman pulpster Edward Churchill. Now, I usually enjoy Churchill's work and this may well be a good story, but I have to wonder if publisher Ned Pines cut a deal with Biggers' estate to publish a new Chan story, or if he just did it anyway. We'll probably never know. At any rate, it's the only non-Biggers entry in the series until the 1970s, when several different authors wrote Chan stories for CHARLIE CHAN MYSTERY MAGAZINE. Which, come to think of it, was owned and published by Leo Margulies, who worked as editorial director for Ned Pines. Hmmm. Anyway, elsewhere in this issue are stories by T.T. Flynn, one of my favorite Western writers who also did mysteries and detective yarns, Robert Sidney Bowen, and Ray Cummings. That's a talented bunch.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Sky Devils, March 1938

SKY DEVILS was a short-lived (7 issues) air war pulp from the Red Circle group. This is the first issue, and it has a nice cover by J.W. Scott. Inside are some of the usual suspects--Robert Sidney Bowen, John Scott Douglas, and Anatole Feldman writing as Anthony Field--plus some names that may well be pseudonyms and/or house-names: Terry Dell, John Loring, John Carlisle, and "Ace" Denver (the by-line has the quotes in it). It wouldn't surprise me at all if all of those were either Bowen or Feldman.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Sky Fighters, July 1937

I said a while back that I ought to read some issues of the air war pulp SKY FIGHTERS. Well, I don’t actually own any. But I do own the Adventure House reprint of the July 1937 issue, so I read it. The cover is by Eugene Frandzen, who painted a bunch of them for SKY FIGHTERS.

This issue leads off with the novella “North Sea Nightmare” by George Bruce. I read another novella by Bruce last year and really enjoyed it. This one is set during World War I and centers around two young Navy pilots known as Goldilocks (because he’s small and blond) and the Bear (because he’s big and burly). Goldilocks is the pilot and the Bear is the observer/gunner in a flying boat that does reconnaissance patrols over the North Sea, looking for German ships and submarines. They come up with a daring plan for a raid on the bay where most of the German navy is based. That raid provokes an even more epic battle that may change the course of the war. I like the way Bruce writes, and there’s plenty of good action in this one. Goldilocks and the Bear are good characters, too. But I never found the plot as compelling as in the other story by Bruce that I read, and I didn’t like the ending. So while I still consider this a good story, I found it somewhat disappointing. I definitely want to read more by George Bruce, though.

Over the years, I’ve read quite a few of the pulp novels featuring the Lone Eagle, an American pilot/intelligence agent named John Masters whose adventures appeared in the pulp THE LONE EAGLE (later renamed THE AMERICAN EAGLE and AMERICAN EAGLES). The stories appeared under the house-name Lt. Scott Morgan but were written by several different authors, most notably F.E. Rechnitzer, who created the series. I always enjoyed the Lone Eagle stories because Masters was just as much of a spy as he was a pilot, and most of the novels had him operating extensively behind enemy lines as well as engaging in aerial dogfights. He often crossed paths with the mysterious and dangerous R-47, a seductive female German agent who became a recurring villainess. The first two novels in the series are reprinted in a very nice double volume from Black Dog Books called WINGS OF WAR, which is still available on Amazon in e-book and trade paperback editions.

I said all that to say this: this issue of SKY FIGHTERS features a Lone Eagle novelette, also called “Wings of War”, and it’s the only time a story about the character appeared anywhere other than in his own pulp. I don’t know what brought that about. It’s possible one of the Lone Eagle authors turned in a manuscript that was too short and the editors at the Thrilling Group just decided to run it in SKY FIGHTERS rather than asking the author to expand it. Or maybe the story was written to order at novelette length in order to publicize the Lone Eagle’s own pulp—although that seems an odd thing to do several years into a magazine’s run. (THE LONE EAGLE debuted in 1933.) Regardless of its origins, “Wings of War” is a good story, with Masters going undercover as a German soldier returned in a prisoner exchange so that he try to find out why the Germans seemingly have abandoned a vital area along the front. Masters suspects the wily Huns are just setting a trap for the Allies. He’s right, of course, but he discovers what’s really going on only after another encounter with R-47, and as usual, their meeting almost proves fatal for Masters. There’s plenty of action, a plausible if far-fetched scheme by the Germans, and a smashing climax. I enjoyed this story, and it reminded me that it’s been too long since I read one of the full-length Lone Eagle novels.

“Luck of the Damned” is John Scott Douglas, a versatile and prolific pulpster who wrote scores of aviation, adventure, Western, and sports stories in a career that lasted from the mid-Twenties to the early Fifties. It’s about a young pilot who’s convinced he’s jinxed, especially on his birthday. So when his commanding officer orders him to fly a dangerous mission on that particular day, he has to battle not only the enemy but also his own superstition. This is an entertaining story that I thought wasn’t quite as strong as it might have been with a different twist, but it’s still worth reading.

Robert Sidney Bowen is one of the big names in aviation and air war pulp. He wrote a lot of other things, too, including boy’s adventure novels and mystery and detective yarns. I’ve been reading his work for close to 60 years now and always enjoy it. Just a very solid, dependably entertaining writer. His story in this issue, “Fledgling’s Finish”, is no exception. A young pilot volunteers for a suicidal bombing run on a castle that’s the center of the German communications network. When his commander refuses to let him, he takes it on himself to make the effort anyway. Most of the story is written from the point of view of the commanding officer, which proves to be an effective and suspenseful tactic. I really enjoyed this story.

Joe Archibald’s specialty was humorous stories. He didn’t just write them for the air war pulps (although he did a bunch of them), he turned out humorous yarns for the Western, detective, and sports pulps, too. I’m not a big fan of his work, but sometimes I find his stories mildly amusing. That’s a pretty good description of “A Flyer in Cauliflowers”. This is part of a series featuring two American pilots named Ambrose Hooley and Muley Spink (the narrator). The plot concerns a prizefight between an American flier and a British pilot to determine who deserves credit for shooting down a couple of German planes. There’s also a captured German ace who escapes and has to be hunted down. As I said above, it’s mildly amusing and moves along fairly well, so it’s a readable story. Not much more than that, mind you, but I did finish it, which is more than I can say for some of Archibald’s yarns.

Hal White wrote dozens of Western, detective, and aviation stories for the pulps between the mid-Twenties and the early Fifties, but that’s all I know about him. His story “Fly High and Die” wraps up this issue. It’s about a squadron of fighter pilots who believe they’ve been cursed by a dead German ace. Anytime they fly higher than 8000 feet, something terrible happens to them. Of course, there’s more to it than that. The actual solution to the mystery struck me as a little bland, but overall the story is okay.

And okay is a good description of this issue as a whole. The Lone Eagle story is excellent, the Robert Sidney Bowen story is very good, and even though I found the George Bruce story a little disappointing, it’s still a good story and makes me want to read more by him. The other stories are mildly entertaining but forgettable. I probably won’t go hunting for more issues of SKY FIGHTERS, but if I come across any, I won’t hesitate to grab them, either.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Sky Fighters, January 1940

I don't have any issues of SKY FIGHTERS. Maybe I should try to get my hands on some. They have good covers, well-respected authors, and hey, it's a Thrilling Publication, right? Says so right on the cover. I generally like all the other Thrilling Group pulps I've read. I don't know who did the cover on this issue, but I like it. Inside are stories by top aviation/air war pulpsters Robert Sidney Bowen, Arch Whitehouse, and Harold F. Cruickshank, plus Captain J. Winchcombe-Taylor, David Brandt, and house-name Lt. Scott Morgan. I have plenty of other things to read, of course, but one of these days . . .

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Battle Birds, February 1940

I don’t own this pulp, but I do own an e-book reprint of it which I read recently because it contains one of David Goodis’s early aviation yarns, and after reading Cullen Gallagher’s excellent books about Goodis’s pulp fiction, I wanted to sample one of them. I figured I might as well go ahead and read the other stories while I was at it.

This is actually the first issue of BATTLE BIRDS’ third incarnation as a pulp. It started out as a regular aviation/air war pulp under the name BATTLE BIRDS in December 1932 and continued for 19 issues through the June 1934 issue. Then with the July 1934 issue, it became a character pulp with science fiction elements as DUSTY AYRES AND HIS BATTLE BIRDS, with the title character leading an air war against a future invader of the United States. I read one of those many, many years ago and probably ought to check out that series again. That lasted for 12 issues until July/August 1935. The title was dormant for a few years until BATTLE BIRDS made a comeback with this issue from February 1940.

Robert Sidney Bowen, who wrote all those earlier Dusty Ayres novels as well as scores of other aviation and air war yarns, leads off this issue with the novella “The Last Flight of the Damned”. Bowen was a solid pro who knew how to keep a story perking along with action and drama, but the plot of this one, involving a German mad scientist who comes up with a super-scientific weapon (powered by handwavium, no doubt) with which to destroy Allied planes during World War I, had been done an awful lot, even by 1940. Despite it being well-written, I had a little trouble working up much excitement about this one—which is absolutely unfair of me because I’ll read Western pulp stories with plots that had been used even more and still love them. I know that the stalwart cowboy falling in love with the rancher’s beautiful daughter and saving the ranch is even more of a stereotype than the German mad scientist and his super weapon. But I guess as readers we like what we like, and “The Last Flight of the Damned”, while mildly entertaining, is nothing special.

David Goodis is up next with “Bullets For the Brave”, published under his own name instead of one of the numerous house-names under which he also worked, and it’s about as different as you can get from Bowen’s tale and have both of them still be World War I aviation yarns. There are no super-weapons in this one, just raw human emotion and suffering as an American pilot loses his nerve after surviving being shot down and gets a reputation among his squadron for being yellow. His efforts to live with that and finally redeem himself are pretty powerful stuff, and Goodis’s prose is unrelentingly bleak. This is a really good story and just makes me want to read more of Goodis’s pulp fiction.

I don’t know anything about Moran Tudury except that he wrote hundreds of stories for various aviation, sports, Western, and romance pulps beginning in the mid-Twenties and then finally cracked the slicks in the mid-Forties. His short story in this issue, “The Ghost Rides West”, is about a German ace who is shot down again and again, only to rise from the grave and continue fighting. An American pilot who flies for the Lafayette Escadrille eventually figures out the secret behind this seemingly unkillable ace. It’s a decent story. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything by Tudury, but based on this yarn, I would again.

Despite his name, Orlando Rigoni was a Westerner born and raised, born in Utah and spending most of his life in northern California. He was a railroader, a miner, and worked for the Forest Service in addition to being a very prolific pulpster who wrote hundreds of stories, mostly for the Western pulps, but he started out in the aviation pulps and contributed quite a few stories to them. He also wrote dozens of Western novels and is best remembered for those today. I knew his name as a Western writer long before I found out he wrote aviation stories, too. His story in this issue, “Eagles Fly Alone”, is an excellent yarn about the Horde of Hellions, a group of pilots who are mavericks and have trouble adjusting to a more disciplined style of flying and fighting when a new commander comes in. This is the first thing by Rigoni that I recall reading, although I have several of his Western novels on my shelves. I really ought to get around to reading them one of these days.

Harold F. Cruickshank is another author I knew as a Western writer long before I realized he got his start in the war and aviation pulps in the late Twenties. I haven’t really liked the Western stories I’ve read by him. I don’t know what it is, but something about them just rubs me the wrong way. He did a long series in RANGE RIDERS WESTERN about a group of settlers in Sun Bear Valley, a series that’s sometimes referred to as the Pioneer Folk series. I got to the point that I just skipped those because I knew I wouldn’t enjoy them. “The Valley of the Green Death” in this issue is the first air war yarn I’ve read by him, and I wanted to give it a fair chance. One problem that crops up right away and isn’t Cruickshank's fault is that the group of pilots in this story is also called the Hellions. This is something the editor should have addressed by asking either Cruickshank or Rigoni to change the name of their group or at least not running the stories back-to-back in the same issue. But again, this isn’t Cruickshank's fault, so I pressed on. Sure enough, the villain of this story is a mad German scientist who’s invented a superscientific weapon to kill American pilots. But wait! This time the mad German scientist isn’t a wizened little gnome or a disfigured giant. No, he’s actually a pilot himself and an ace, to boot. This is a very nice twist, and I’ll give Cruickshank credit for it. The story itself isn’t bad. I thought the writing was a little clunky in places, but it moves right along and wound up being enjoyable. I’d read more of Cruickshank's aviation stories, which is good because I have some of them.

“Passport to the Grave” is the only story by Rupert B. Chandler listed in the Fictionmags Index. That always makes me suspicious that the name is a pseudonym. This story has an interesting idea—a group of fliers known as Squadron Ex that’s made up of pilots from different countries—but the writing is clumsy enough that I had to reread several passages just to figure out what was going on. One of the squadron’s members is shot down and believed to be dead, and another pilot goes on a one-man mission to avenge him and uncover a traitor in the group. There are definitely things to like in this one if the writing was better. Maybe Rupert B. Chandler was a real guy and that’s the best he could do. Kind of a shame if he didn’t get a chance to develop, for whatever reason.

The final story in the issue is “The All-American Ace” by Metteau Miles, evidently the author’s real name, who published a dozen and a half stories in a brief career between 1937 and 1941. It’s a pretty good yarn about a former All-American college football player who’s now a pilot flying alongside a former teammate. When the teammate gets shot down, the protagonist sets out to avenge him (a lot of that going around). This is a pretty well-written tale with good characters. I enjoyed it.

Overall, I enjoyed the whole issue, but the more aviation stories I read, the more I realize I need to space them out. As I said above, I’m really being unfair to the genre since I’m a lot more tolerant of stereotypical plots in Westerns—and in detective and science fiction pulps, too, to be honest—than I am of these. Still, I’ve become more of an aviation pulp fan than I’ve been in the past and look forward to reading more of them.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Double Action Western, September 1953

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy in the scan. The cover is another by A. Leslie Ross, even though it’s not credited as such. The distinctive hats make me confident that it’s Ross’s work, as does the sketchiness of the background which was common on his pulp covers from this era.

I don’t recall if I’ve read anything by Richard Brister before (and I’m too lazy to look it up), but I’m impressed by his lead novelette in this issue. “Death Rides for Doom Ranch” (I’m betting editor Robert W. Lowndes came up with that title) has an unusual protagonist: a doctor sent to prison for the mercy killing of his best friend who had cancer. After escaping, the doctor heads west, where a disastrous train derailment gets him involved with a rancher and the rancher’s beautiful daughter. At this point, I was expecting a save-the-ranch story, albeit with an offbeat protagonist, but that’s not what Brister has in mind. Instead he introduces the local sheriff, who’s in love with the rancher’s beautiful daughter, and what we get is a story that mixes psychological suspense and soap opera, with very little action. What’s surprising to me is how much I enjoyed it anyway as Brister kept me flipping the pages to find out what was going to happen. That takes some skillful writing. I’m going to have to delve deeper into Brister’s work.

As we all know from the Internet, Leo Tolstoy has taught us that there are only three plots in fiction: A man goes on a journey. A stranger comes to town. Godzilla versus Megashark. (I’m sorry. I just really like that meme.) Barney Stuart’s short story “He Just Walked Away” takes place entirely in the small town of Tall Timber, Montana, so it doesn’t really fit the first category, and there are no monsters in it, so this must be a “stranger comes to town” story. The stranger is a bad guy, too, and it looks like he’s going to cause considerable trouble until one of the locals takes action against him in an unusual manner. There’s a sort of twist ending that’s not very surprising, but it is effective. This is Barney Stuart’s only credit in the Fictionmags Index. A pseudonym? Who knows? But it’s a decent little yarn.

“Command Performance” is by David James, a fairly prolific pulpster whose work appeared only in pulps from Columbia Publications, which always makes me suspect a house-name. Be that as it may, this story has an interesting protagonist, too: a former New York City police detective who has to move west for his health and winds up becoming the sheriff of a mining town. A famous female opera singer comes to town for the opening of its new opera house. The sheriff has a crush on the opera singer and gives everybody he arrests the choice of sitting in jail or buying a ticket for the opening night performance. That results in a packed house, but cowboys and miners being what they are, chaos ensues. This is a decent setup and the story is mildly amusing, but in the end it doesn’t amount to much and seems like it needed another plot angle or two to make it interesting.

C.C. Staples wrote about 50 Western and adventure stories for various pulps between the late Thirties and the early Fifties. His story in this issue, “Golden Boy”, is about an Arizona Ranger on the trail of a horse thief turned murderer and kidnapper. It’s not bad, plenty of action and fairly well written. I’m not going to rush out and look for more stories by Staples, but I enjoyed this one.

Robert Sidney Bowen is probably best remembered for his air war stories, but he wrote quite a few Western and detective yarns, too. “Gambler’s Pot” in this issue is a rare Western pulp story in that it’s written in first person, by a crooked gambler who has a plan to bilk a successful rancher. Naturally, things don’t work as he expects. There’s really not much to this story, but Bowen was a good enough storyteller to make it readable, if not memorable.

Norman Ober wrote a lot for the Columbia pulps, mostly sports stories but some Westerns, too. His story in this issue, “Election in Creek Bottom”, is a comedy about a crooked saloon owner running his own candidate in the election for sheriff, only to have the scheme backfire on him. It’s a fairly amusing yarn and could have made a good movie starring, say, Don Knotts.

“Drygulch Range” by E.E. Clement uses the save-the-ranch plot that I thought I was going to get in Richard Brister’s story, only this novelette doesn’t have an offbeat protagonist. Instead, our hero is the usual drifting cowpoke, in this case stalwart Texan Steve Crane who is on his way to the Black Hills of South Dakota to start a horse ranch there. A reference to the Spanish-American War places the time period of this one around the turn of the century. Crane encounters a pint-size rustler hunter and then the little boy’s beautiful older sister shows up and mistakes Crane for a rustler, too, at least at first. A little bit later, a bushwhacker tries to ventilate him. Yep, our boy Steve shore is ridin’ into trouble.

While the plot of this one may not be anything new, Lowndes does an excellent job of spinning an entertaining yarn. He gives us a tough, likable protagonist, plenty of action, and a few humorous touches. Some of the “yuh mangy polecat” dialogue is so over the top, I’m convinced his tongue was firmly in his cheek as he wrote this, but if he’s making a little fun of the genre’s conventions, he’s doing it in a very affectionate way. I enjoyed this one a lot, and I’m going to have to go through my stack of Columbia Western pulps looking for more E.E. Clement stories.

There are also several fact-based features by Lauran Paine, Lee Floren (writing as Lee Thomas), and A. Hyatt Verrill, but as usual I just skimmed these. I don’t actually read features in a Western pulp unless they’re about some historical subject in which I’m particularly interested.

This is a pretty solid issue of DOUBLE ACTION WESTERN, another good example of how Lowndes, as an editor, could make something out of almost nothing (the magazine’s tiny budget). There are no truly outstanding stories, although the Brister and the Clement novelettes come close, but they’re all readable and entertaining.

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: Dime Detective, June 1936

With the exception of BLACK MASK in the Twenties, I'm not sure there was ever a better detective pulp than DIME DETECTIVE in the Thirties. And DIME DETECTIVE runs BLACK MASK a pretty close second! With Walter Baumhofer as the regular cover artist, you know the magazine was going to look great. This issue has a pretty typical line-up of authors inside: a Cardigan story by Frederick Nebel, a Needle Mike story by William E. Barrett, a Carter Cole story by Frederick C. Davis, a Kip Lacey story by Robert Sidney Bowen, and a stand-alone yarn by Hugh B. Cave. You might find a better bunch of writers than that in some other detective pulp, but not often.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: New Detective Magazine, January 1942

This issue of NEW DETECTIVE MAGAZINE sports a striking cover (I don't know the artist) and features some fine authors: Frederick C. Davis, William R. Cox, Robert Sidney Bowen, Donald G. Carmack, and a few who are unfamiliar to me: Richard L. Hobart, Don Joseph, and John Hawkins. Davis, Cox, and Bowen are enough to make an issue worth reading, though.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Texas Rangers, September 1952

Art by Sam Cherry

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. The scan is of my copy. TEXAS RANGERS is one of my favorite pulps, and this is a good issue.

It leads off, as all issues of TEXAS RANGERS do, with a full-length novel featuring Texas Ranger Jim Hatfield. “Ranger’s Ransom” finds Hatfield, also known as the Lone Wolf, arriving in a West Texas cowtown to investigate the murder of a rancher who’s an old friend of his, only to find that he’s already been there. Or rather, somebody pretending to be Hatfield has been, and he’s made off with a vital piece of evidence in the case. That doesn’t stop Hatfield from launching his own investigation, which winds up with him being captured by the villains and held for ransom (hence the title). Hatfield, of course, still has some tricks up his sleeve and doesn’t intend to let the bad guys win.

This novel has long been attributed to Walker A. Tompkins, writing under the house-name Jackson Cole. However, now that I’ve read it, I’m not 100% convinced that it’s Tompkins’ work. The writing just doesn’t sound quite like Tompkins to me. It’s definitely not by Peter Germano or Roe Richmond, the other two principal authors on the Hatfield series at this point. Joseph Chadwick also write a few Hatfield novels right around this time, and “Ranger’s Ransom” has a hardboiled tone to it that makes me wonder if Chadwick actually wrote it. It does have the double initials in the title that Tompkins was fond of using, so that’s one point in his favor. But I doubt if I’ll ever know for sure, one way or the other. Anyway, what’s most important is that this is a very entertaining yarn with some good action scenes, and Hatfield’s boss, Ranger Captain “Roaring Bill” McDowell, gets to play a part in the action, which almost never happens in this series.

Thomas Calvert McClary was a prolific pulpster, producing hundreds of stories, mostly Westerns and detective yarns, from the early Thirties on through the end of the pulp era. And after that he contributed numerous stories to the mystery digests in the Fifties and Sixties. His story in this issue, “Long Live the King”, under the name T.C. McClary, is about an outlaw gang on the run and their leader, Tom King, weary of the owlhoot life and wanting to leave it behind. That doesn’t set well with some of the others in the gang and leads to a showdown that also involves a young lawman. This story is predictable and even a little melodramatic, but McClary does a really good job with it, including the epic gun battle that wraps it up.

I’ve mentioned before that I don’t care much for Ben Frank’s long-running Doc Swap series of comedy Westerns, but I read the one in this issue, “Doc Swap’s Reversible Wrangle”, and actually enjoyed it. The series if very formulaic—"Doc Swap is an irascible old geezer who swaps for stuff he wants, and hijinks ensue” is the plot of every one I’ve read—but I guess if you space them out long enough in between, they can be kind of entertaining. Ben Frank, who also wrote under his real name, Frank Bennett, turned out some pretty smooth prose, I’ll give him that.

H.A. DeRosso is another favorite of mine, the author of some of the bleakest Westerns you’ll find. His story in this issue, “For Love or Money”, isn’t as dark as some of his work that I’ve read, but it’s still a compelling yarn about a man whose former partner steals his woman, his ranch, and all his money. So naturally, he’s out for revenge. But not everything is as it seems, and while the twist isn’t very surprising, DeRosso handles it fairly well. This is minor DeRosso but worth reading.

Steuart Emery is another author whose career lasted a long time, all the way from 1919 to 1970. Early on, he wrote almost exclusively for the aviation and air war pulps but eventually came to specialize in Westerns about the U.S. Cavalry. His novelette in this issue, “Manhunt in the Sun”, is about a cavalryman serving in the army under a fake name because he’s wanted for murder. His past is about to catch up to him when he finds himself in the middle of a war with the Apaches and has to decide where his true loyalties lie. This is a superb story told in a gritty, fast-moving style, and it includes a scene most definitely inspired by one of my favorite films, GUNGA DIN. Everything I’ve read by Steuart Emery has been top-notch, and this continues that streak.

Giles A. Lutz was a productive, well-respected Western novelist for many years who started out writing for the pulps. His story here, “Best Man”, is about a romantic triangle, a windmill, and a blue norther. It’s slight but likable.

The same is true of “One Man’s Law”, by yet another veteran pulpster who wrote a lot for the aviation pulps, Robert Sidney Bowen. It concerns a lawman whose search for a murderer takes him back to his old hometown, which he left under less than ideal circumstances, so the protagonist has to face his past as well as corral a killer. Bowen was enough of an old pro to make it slick and entertaining.

This issue also includes several features, among them “Sagebrush Savvy”, a question-and-answer column written by S. Omar Barker, which was the only one that interested me. Barker is always worth reading.

Overall, this is a very solid issue of TEXAS RANGERS, with a good Jim Hatfield novel, Steuart Emery’s excellent novelette, and a variety of other stories that range from very good to okay. There’s not really a weak one in the bunch. If you’re a fan of this pulp and have a copy of this one you haven’t read yet, it’s well worth pulling down from the shelf.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Novels, August 1940

This issue of DETECTIVE NOVELS has some historical significance because it marks the first appearance of The Crimson Mask, another masked crimefighter whose adventures were chronicled by the amazingly prolific Norman A. Daniels, this time under the pseudonym Frank Johnson. The Crimson Mask is actually pharmacist Bob Clarke (that's right, a two-fisted, crime-busting pharmacist) and the stories I've read starring him are pretty good. Daniels was also the author of the other lead story in this issue, a Candid Camera Kid yarn under the name John L. Benton. The Candid Camera Kid was crime photographer Jerry Wade. I've read several of these and really like them. I think this series is some of Daniels' best work and hope that it's reprinted in its entirety someday. Daniels didn't write the entire issue. Also on hand are veteran pulpster Robert Sidney Bowen and a couple of authors I hadn't heard of, Kenneth Kerriton and Arthur W. Phillips. It's mostly Daniels' show this time around, though.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Famous Detective Stories, August 1950

I think this may be the first "beautiful blonde in slinky red dress plus skeleton in diving costume" cover I've ever seen on a pulp. But of course I could be wrong about that. All I know is I like this cover quite a bit and it would certainly intrigue me enough to plunk down a quarter, if I had one. The lineup of authors inside is intriguing, too, since they're mostly better known for science fiction rather than detective stories: Murray Leinster, Ray Cummings, James MacCreigh (Frederik Pohl), and Oscar J. Friend, who was pretty well-known as a Western writer, too. Also on hand are Norman A. Daniels, who wrote everything, and Robert Sidney Bowen, who I always think of as an aviation writer, even though he wrote a lot of other things, too. I suspect it's a pretty entertaining issue.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: G-Men Detective, September 1941

There's a lot happening on this cover of G-MEN DETECTIVE, and it definitely makes me want to read the issue. I don't know who did the art. I'm a little less enthusiastic about what's inside, since the Dan Fowler lead novel is by Charles S. Strong. I haven't read much by Strong, only a couple of his Western novels under his Chuck Stanley pseudonym, but I found them to be pretty bland. However, he might be a lot better with a Dan Fowler yarn. Maybe I'll find out someday. Meanwhile, there are some dependably good authors on hand, too, including the great John K. Butler, Norman A. Daniels, and Robert Sidney Bowen.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Tales, February 1939

There's really a lot happening on the cover of this issue of DETECTIVE TALES. Action galore, which I like. And I'll bet there's plenty of action in the stories by Wyatt Blassingame (one under his own name and one as by William B. Rainey), Bruno Fischer (writing as Russell Gray), G.T. Fleming-Roberts, D.L. Champion, Robert Sidney Bowen, and John G. Pearsol (better known for his Westerns).

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Thrilling Detective, October 1937

What better way to start off the new year than with a Norman Saunders cover? This one's not as action-packed as some of his covers but still very effective. And "Hell's Brew at Gumbo Point" is one of the great goofy titles. Other authors in this issue besides Westmoreland Gray are Robert Sidney Bowen, Jean Francis Webb, and George Bruce.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Dare-Devil Aces, April 1937

Hmm, I don't remember ever reading anything in the history books about an aerial dogfight like this over Manhattan, but that sure looks like the Empire State Building. There's a lot going on in this cover by Frederick Blakeslee, and I like it! Inside are stories by air-war pulp stalwarts Robert J. Hogan, Robert Sidney Bowen, William O'Sullivan, and others, plus a letters column known as the Hot Air Club, conducted by Nosedive Ginsberg (no doubt some assistant editor hiding behind that colorful moniker). I have to be in the right mood for aviation and air-war pulps, but when I am, I really like 'em.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: G-Men Detective, Winter 1944

That's a pretty grim but effective cover on this issue of G-MEN DETECTIVE. I've read quite a few of the Dan Fowler novels and found them to be consistently entertaining, despite the wide variety of authors who wrote them. This one is by Laurence Donovan, and there are also stories in this issue by the prolific Norman A. Daniels and Robert Sidney Bowen.