Hubert Rogers provides a nice deep sea diving cover for this issue of STREET & SMITH'S DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE. Inside are well-known authors Erle Stanley Gardner (with a Lester Leith novella), Steve Fisher, and William G. Bogart, along with lesser known (at least to me) Edmund M. Littell, Chris Sieyes, and Carl Clausen. Of all the ESG characters I've read, Lester Leith is probably my least-favorite. However, I'm not sure I've ever read any of the stories except the one in Ron Goulart's iconic anthology THE HARDBOILED DICKS, so that's hardly a fair trial. I ought to see if I can hunt up a few more Leith yarns and give them a try. I own a few issues of DETECTIVE STORY (not this one) but I don't believe I've ever read any of them. I probably ought to do that, too.
THE FEDS was a G-Man pulp published by Street & Smith, a company that usually was very successful with anything they put out there. Not so with THE FEDS, which lasted for only 15 issues in 1936 and '37. But its lack of longevity can't be attributed to the generally pretty good covers, including this one on the second issue which is probably collectable because of the presence of all those Ku Klux Klansmen on it. I don't know who painted it. Nor were the writers any slouches. This issue features stories by Steve Fisher, Wyatt Blassingame, W.T. Ballard, Arthur J. Burks, William G. Bogart, Laurence Donovan, Jean Francis Webb, George Allan Moffatt (Edwin V. Burkholder), James Duncan (Arthur Pincus), and house-name Bruce Harley. Probably some good reading there. I don't own this issue and it doesn't appear to be available on-line, but if I did have a copy of it, I wouldn't hesitate to give it a try.
There's a lot going on in this cover by Allen Anderson, including a Clark Gable lookalike who's about to get brained by a feisty redhead. Oddly enough, the cover story in this issue is by Alan Anderson, a totally different guy, as far as I know. There's also a Dan Turner story by Robert Leslie Bellem, and the rest are all retitled reprints from earlier issues of SPICY DETECTIVE STORIES published under house-names. The real authors behind them include Arthur Warren and William G. Bogart. The others? Who knows? This is actually the final issue of SPICY DETECTIVE STORIES. The next month the magazine continued under the name SPEED DETECTIVE STORIES, with (supposedly) slightly toned down content.
I like this cover, although that gunman's hands seem awfully large. The better to threaten the Feds and paw that babe in the red swimsuit, I guess. There are plenty of good writers in this issue of THE FEDS: Steve Fisher, Norman A. Daniels, Arthur J. Burks, Jean Francis Webb, William G. Bogart, Dale Clark, Laurence Donovan, and Edwin V. Burkholder. Not the top rank of pulp authors, maybe, but a good solid B-team.
Featuring an adventure of the Federal Gorilla Bureau! Seriously, this cover seems to be illustrating a story by Alan Hathway called "The Gorilla Speaks", but I have no idea what it's about. Other authors in this issue are Steve Fisher, Paul Ernst, Laurence Donovan, Norman A. Daniels, Ben Conlon, George Allan Moffatt, Jean Francis Webb, and William G. Bogart. If you're keeping score, that's four guys who wrote Doc Savage novels (Hathway, Donovan, Daniels, and Bogart) and another who wrote under the Kenneth Robeson by-line (Ernst, on THE AVENGER), plus the fellow who wrote Pete Rice (Conlon) and one of the many Phantom Detective authors (Webb). Quite a line-up.
