Another copy of COMPLETE DETECTIVE NOVEL MAGAZINE from my collection. It’s been a while, so please go back to this previous post for more information about the project this is a part of.

COMPLETE DETECTIVE NOVEL MAGAZINE November 1931

November 1931. Number 41. Total pages: 144, not including covers.

      * 8 * John T. McIntyre * Blows in the Dark * novel * illustrated by Leo Morey

      * 85 * Ward Andrus Scranton * The Almost Perfect Crime * short story (reporter Jimmie Reed)

      * 95 * Jack Martin * The Subway Murders * short story (reporter Hemming Byrd)

      * 114 * Ray Torr * The Doctor Crippen Case * true crime article * continued on page 116

      * 115 * Samuel Davenport * Final Extra! * short short story

      * 117 * James W. Poling * Steps of Death * short story

      * 132 * James Moynahan * Rat Poison * short story

Comments: Reporters seem to have been quite the rage, as far as the short fiction in this issue is concerned. The leading character in “Blows in the Dark,” which does not seem to ever have been published anywhere else, is Bob Craige, an adventurer recently returned from Mexico and Central America, only to find waiting for him in New York City a dying man, a beautiful girl, and a Chinese gentleman (I believe I am using the term lightly) named Hong Yo.

   As for John T. McIntyre, here is his entry in Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. I’m quite positive that this is the same author as the one who wrote “Blows in the Dark.”

McINTYRE, JOHN (Thomas)

* In the Toils (play) Penn 1898
* -The Ragged Edge (n.) McClure 1902
* In the Dead of Night (n.) Lippincott 1908 [New York City, NY]

JOHN T. McINTYRE In the Dead of the Night

* -The Street Singer (n.) Penn 1908
* Ashton-Kirk: Investigator (n.) Penn 1910 [Ashton Kirk; New York City, NY]
* Ashton-Kirk: Secret Agent (n.) Penn 1912 [Ashton Kirk]

JOHN T. McINTYRE Ashton-Kirk

* Ashton-Kirk: Special Detective (n.) Penn 1912 [Ashton Kirk; New York City, NY]
* Ashton-Kirk: Criminologist (n.) Penn 1918 [Ashton Kirk; New York City, NY]

JOHN T. McINTYRE Ashton-Kirk

* “Slag” (n.) Scribner 1927
* The Museum Murder (n.) Doubleday 1929 [New York City, NY]

JOHN T. McINTYRE The Museum Murder

* Steps Going Down (n.) Farrar 1936 [Philadelphia, PA]

JOHN T. McINTYRE Steps Going Down

* -Signing Off (n.) Farrar 1938

   One of the books is available online. Follow the link above. About Ashton-Kirk, I’ve found a blogger who has said:

    “Until you read the Conan Doyle imitators who were roughly his contemporaries, you can’t understand how reasonable, comparatively, Sherlock Holmes is. Ashton-Kirk is clearly based on Holmes, and yet —

    “He’s one of those young, aristocratic cultured gentlemen. And yes, his eyes are piercing, and his fabulous house is in a bad neighborhood, and he’s irritatingly cryptic, but it’s all part of the formula.”

   This observation is corroborated by Jess Nevins on his Pulp and Adventure Heroes website, where he says in part:

    “Ashton-Kirk, one of the more obvious Holmes homages, was created by John T. McIntyre and appeared in The Popular Magazine and in four collections starting in 1910. Ashton-Kirk is much younger than Holmes, being only in his mid-twenties, the scion of wealth and an ancient line. He has an excellent physique and mind, capable of feats of deduction quite similar to Holmes’ own. Like Holmes, he has a talent for disguise and amateur theatrics, and has a Watson-like assistant.”

[UPDATE.]   Regarding the previous entry in this series, the lead novel for which was “The Murders at Hillside,” by Virginia Anne Roth, Bill Pronzini had this to say about the author, after I mentioned to him that I had all of her novels, but I haven’t read one yet:

    “I think you’ll enjoy the Rath novels. Good, solid Golden Age plotting, background, and characterization. A suggestion: Start with Death at Dayton’s Folly, her first for Crime Club and one of her best.”