NORBERT DAVIS “Walk Across My Grave.” Short story. First published in Black Mask, April 1942. Reprinted in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, November 1953.

   I was talking about humorous private eyes after reading Loren D. Estleman’s story “State of Grace” a short while back. The PI in that tale was a chap named Ralph Poteet, a relatively recent hero of sorts based in Detroit. Going back in time, to the early 1940s, the leading character in this story is a chap named Jim Laury, who’s not a PI at all, but a matter-of-fact sort of fellow whose fictional existence was even shorter than Mr. Poteet’s. According to all the evidence I’ve been able to find, this is the only story he was ever in.

   He’s a quiet, unprepossessing ,man. Here’s the first couple of paragraphs that was used to describe him as he comes into the story, a two or three pages in:

   Not too much there to stoke anyone’s sense of humor there, I suppose, but I think it’s an excellent piece of writing. No, what I found really funny comes later, speaking of myself in particular, as he listens to his deputy (a man named Waldo) wild and woolly theories about the case, bods thoughtfully as if they had any real bearing about the case, and continues on about business.

   Which begins with a figure in black being seen stumbling around in a cemetery at night banging into tombstones and all, then seguing into a murder that has to be solved. Which Mr. Laury does, calmly and in very cool pulpish fashion.

   It’s too bad that Norbert Davis never tool the time to wrote down any other of his cases. He wrote lots of other tales equally fun to read, though, in a career that was far too short. He died in 1949, at the age of only 40.

FREDERICK NEBEL “Murder à la Carte.” PI Jack Cardigan. First published in Dime Detective Magazine. 15 November 1933. Collected in The Adventures of Cardigan. (Mysterious Press, softcover, 1988), and in The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 2: 1933 (Steeger Properties, softcover, 2012).

   Cardigan’s main source of work comes from the Cosmos Agency, but he’s hired on his own by a baseball pitcher and a good friend in this one. The fellow was picked up in bar by a lady of some disrepute and after a few drinks they head off to her place in a cab. He doesn’t remember much after that, or so he tells Cardigan.

   He also doesn’t remember signing a check for the lady, a sizable one, but he thinks he might have. This presents a problem on two fronts. He’s married,for one,  and for two,  the World Series is coming up. With him pitching that’s almost a sure two wins for his team. Otherwise, they wouldn’t stand much of a chance. One more problem, and it’s a doozy: when Cardigan finds the lady’s apartment, he finds her dead.

   Nebel’s prose has a smooth, crisp flow to it, and the chase for the two guys Cardigan’s client vaguely remembers being in the girl’s room is a good one. Until, that is, there is a development in the tale that takes the case to a quick ending. Maybe, I thought, just a little too quick. It’s a weak transition point, and it’s far from a fatal one. Maybe it was just me, and maybe I should better just keep my mouth shut.

   Overall it’s a good story. Neither Nebel nor Cardigan are remembered today. Neither is up to Hammett or Chandler’s standards, but on the other hand, nobody else is, either.

WALTER GIBSON – Norgil the Magician. Mysterious Press, hardcover, 1977.

   One of this century’s most prolific writers, Walter Gibson was the author of 282 pulp novels featuring the most famous of all superhero crime fighters, Lamont Cranston, a.k.a. the Shadow. All 282 of those book-length works were produced between 1931 and 1949 and first appeared in The Shadow Magazine under such titles as “The Shadow Laughs,” “The Mobsmen on the Spot,” “The Creeping Death,” “The Voodoo Master,” and “The Shadow, The Hawk, and The Skull.”

   Some forty of these have been reprinted over the years, most in paperback; a few of the shorter ones have appeared in pairs in such Doubleday hardcover titles as The Shadow: The Mask of Mephisto and Murder by Magic (1975) and in the recent Mysterious Press book The Shadow and the Golden Master (1984).

   Gibson also created another series character for the pulps — Norgil the Magician, whose adventures appeared in the magazine Crime Busters in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Norgil is a stage magician: “Like Blackstone or Calvert, both headliners at the time,” Gibson writes in his introduction to Norgil the Magician, the first of two Norgil collections, “he could switch from fifty-minute shows at movie houses to a full evening extravaganza, with an enlarged company.”

   Norgil is an anagram of the conjurer’s real name. Loring; he also can (and does) change it into Ling Ro, a name he uses “when called upon to perform wizardry in Chinese costume.”

   Each of the Norgil stories features a well-known stage illusion as its central plot device — a version of Houdini’s Hindu Needle Trick in “Norgil — Magician”; burial alive in a sealed casket in “The Glass Box”; the rising-card illusion in “Battle of Magic.”

   These eight stories are pulpy, to be sure (the prose almost embarrassingly bad in places), but that shouldn’t spoil most readers· enjoyment of them. The magic in each is authentic and presented with the requisite amount mystery — Gibson was himself a practicing magician — and Norgil’ s melodramatic methods and illusions make for good fun.

   Anyone who has read and enjoyed any of the Shadow novels will certainly want to read this collection, as well its successor, Norgil: More Tales of Prestidigitation ( 1978).

         ———
   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.

NEW DETECTIVE MAGAZINE, May 1944. Cover art by Gloria Stoll. Overall rating: *½.

BRUNO FISCHER “Fatally Yours.” Novelette. A draft board official, accused of selling deferments, is also framed for the murders of those who might have found out, Could only have been written in those days of all-out mobilization, except for those fighting to stay out. (3)

F. ORLIN TREMAINE “The Dagger from Singapore,” Novelette. The love of a sailor with a memory for crime is interrupted by murder. Action, but little else. (1)

FREDERICK C. DAVIS “Death Marks the Spot.” Novel. After six years, an arsonist turned murderer is caught, allowing a falsely convicted gunsmith to work for the war effort, Hard to swallow at times, and overly dramatic. (1)

J. F. HUTTON “Three Days to Howl.” In the time remaining before his induction, Steve Warren helps keep an important new weapon out of enemy hands. (2)

JAMES McCREIGH “No End to Murder.” A train station robbery is thwarted while a cop stops in the restroom. (2)

   PulpFest 2025 got underway early on Wednesday evening, August 6, when the convention’s chairperson, Jack Cullers, opened the dealers’ room at the DoubleTree by Hilton Pittsburgh — Cranberry for vendors to set up for the convention. Many PulpFest dealers took advantage of this early setup to load in their wares and socialize with friends.

   According to PulpFest’s marketing and programming director, Mike Chomko, the DoubleTree staff went above and beyond to have the hotel’s exhibition hall ready and waiting for the convention’s dealers. He recommends that all PulpFest vendors take advantage of the convention’s early set-up hours to prepare their exhibits for the convention’s official opening the next day.

   After the dealers’ room closed at 9 p.m., a small crowd gathered in the programming room for a showing of Frank Lloyd’s 1924 silent film adaptation of Rafael Sabatini’s The Sea Hawk. This year, PulpFest celebrated the sesquicentennial of the historical fiction writer’s birth. Although his work appeared predominantly in British magazines and hardcover, Sabatini’s fiction also ran in Adventure, The Cavalier, Top-Notch Magazine, and other periodicals.

   PulpFest 2025 officially opened on Thursday morning, August 7, with the arrival of more dealers for unloading and setup. Early-bird shopping began around 9 a.m. and continued until 4:45 p.m.

   This year’s dealers’ room sold out several months before the start of the convention. In order to accommodate additional dealers, PulpFest expanded into the hallway, just outside the main exhibition area. With more than twenty additional tables in the foyer, the convention had over 90 exhibitors with their displays covering more than 170 tables.

   Dealers with substantial pulp offerings included Adventure House, Ray Walsh’s Archives Book Shop, Steve Erickson’s Books from the Crypt, Doug Ellis & Deb Fulton, Heartwood Books & Art, Paul Herman, John McMahan, Peter Macuga, Phil Nelson, Sheila Vanderbeek, and Todd & Ross Warren. You could also find original artwork offered by Doug Ellis & Deb Fulton, George Hagenauer, Craig Poole, and others.

   In addition to pulps and original artwork, you could find digests, vintage paperbacks, men’s adventure and true crime magazines, first-edition hardcovers, genre fiction, series books, Golden Age, Silver Age, Bronze Age, and pulp-related comic books, and more.

   Additionally, one could find pulp reprints and contemporary creations, including artwork, new fiction, and fanzines produced by Age of Aces, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., Wayne Carey, Flinch! Books, Doug Klauba, Craig McDonald, Meteor House, Charles F. Millhouse, Brian K. Morris, Will Murray, Wayne Reinagel, The Shadowed Circle, Stark House, Steeger Books, Mark Wheatley, and others.

   New authors and publishers who attended their first PulpFest included Brian Belanger, Robert Mendenhall of Blue Planet Press, Allan Liska of Green Archer Comics, Duane Laflin, Joseph Nelson of Point of Impact Publishing, and Veritas Entertainment.

   The fifth annual PulpFest Pizza Party followed the closure of the dealers’ room at 5 p.m. About 80 pizzas were baked for the convention’s members, thanks to the generosity of PulpFest’s dealers. Since it was started in 2021, the annual pizza gathering has become a very popular fixture at PulpFest. The convention’s advertising director, Bill Lampkin, promises more “Pizza at PulpFest” gatherings in the years to come.

   Following opening remarks by chairman Cullers, the convention’s admirable programming line-up began with Bernice Jones & Cathy Wilbanks exploring Edgar Rice Burroughs’ ideas concerning manhood. Afterward, Ed Hulse discussed another birthday boy, Edgar Wallace. Known as “The King of the Thrillers,” 2025 also marked the 150th anniversary of the author’s birth.

   Tim King of The Shadowed Circle, and pulp historian and author Will Murray came up with a roster featuring the “Masters of Villainy,” part of the convention’s salute to the 90th anniversary of such villain pulps as Doctor Death and The Mysterious Wu Fang. Both debuted in 1935, along with Doctor Satan in Weird Tales.

   The convention’s Burroughs programming continued — ERB completed the trio of authors born in 1875 — with an entertaining foray into the world of Tarzan merchandising by writer and publisher Jim Beard. Next came a peek at Adventure magazine and the creators who made it “The No. 1 Pulp,” according to Time magazine. Tom Krabacher, Kurt Shoemaker, and, once again, Ed Hulse discussed the writers, departments, and particularly, editor Arthur Sullivant Hoffman. It was these “masters” who made Adventure the best pulp on the newsstand.

   Thursday closed out with a showing of King Kong, the 1933 movie classic on which Edgar Wallace lent a hand. The author died while working on the film due to complications from undiagnosed diabetes.

   Despite a long day of buying and selling, and an evening packed with programming, many conventioneers gathered in the hotel lounge to talk and reminisce about their favorite authors, cover artists, and pulp characters long into the night. Late Thursday night was scheduled as a “Bronze Bash,” an informal gathering of the “Fans of Bronze,” many of whom helped to revive the long-defunct Doc Con, which took place at this year’s PulpFest.

   There was more buying and selling on Friday, August 8. Competing for attendees’ attention were three afternoon presentations. Authors John Bruening, Morgan Holmes, Craig McDonald, and Will Murray, with William Patrick Maynard moderating, got the ball rolling with a panel discussion concerning “Personal Demons and the Creative Mind.” Next came the 2025 “Flinch! Fest,” hosted by John C. Bruening & Jim Beard of Flinch! Books, followed by “The Universe According to Edgar Rice Burroughs,” a panel led by Christopher Paul Carey — director of publishing for Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. — and Cathy Wilbanks, the organization’s Vice President of Operations. Joining them were writers Chris L Adams & Win Scott Eckert, both of whom have continued the popular creations of ERB. There was also a Burroughs-inspired art show hosted by Henry G. Franke III, co-founder of ERBFest and editor of The Burroughs Bulletin and The Gridley Wave.

   After the dinner break came more evening programming, beginning with a look at the “Masters of Men’s Adventure Magazines,” presented by Wyatt Doyle, one of the co-editors of “The Men’s Adventure Library.” Next came a pair of contemporary artists — Mark Wheatley and Doug Klauba — both inspired by ERB’s creations, who explored “The Masters of Tarzan Illustration.”

   The panelists for Farmercon XX also took to the stage to discuss “Tarzan the Time Traveler and Discourses on Doc.” Christopher Paul Carey & Win Scott Eckert explored Philip José Farmer’s novel, Time’s Last Gift, and the writings of the Science Fiction Grand Master that concerned Doc Savage. Morgan Holmes examined the historical fiction of Rafael Sabatini, while a conversation between Will Murray and filmmaker Ron Hill concerning the sixties revival of Lester Dent’s Doc Savage by Bantam Books closed out the programming.It was followed by a late-night showing of George Pal’s Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze. Love it or hate it, 2025 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the release of the pulp-inspired movie.

   Once again, there were more late-night gatherings in the DoubleTree’s lounge area. Friday night’s informal socializing was billed as “Fraternize at Farmercon.”

On Saturday, August 9, the dealers’ room opened again at 9 a.m. and brisk business continued. All told, 464 people passed through the entrance to the PulpFest 2025 dealers’ room, where they were tempted by 150 tables filled with thousands of pulp magazines, digests, vintage paperbacks, original art, and much more. But before entertaining, all shoppers had to pass through twenty or more additional tables in the foyer, including booths devoted to ERBFest and Doc Con, two of the “micro-conventions” that have associated with the annual PulpFest.

   Henry Franke’s “Edgar Rice Burroughs, Master of Adventure” art show again tempted attendees to leave the dealers’ room to look at the displays inspired by the popular writer. “Pop Culture Archaeologist” Michael Stradford was also on hand to discuss actor and model Steve Holland, the man who “became” Doc Savage for James Bama and some of the other artists who painted the paperback covers for the Bantam Books series. Next came devoted Doc Savage fans, Ron Hill and Chris Kalb, with a look at George Pal’s film and its history and promotion. Closing out the afternoon programming was a “fan cut” of the film. It was a fitting close for Doc Con’s celebration of the golden anniversary of Pal’s Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze.

   After the close of the dealers’ room and the dinner break, came more evening programming, beginning with a look at PulpFest 2026, presented by committee members Cullers and Chomko. Afterward, the 2025 Munsey Award was presented to researcher, writer, and all-around good guy, John DeWalt. The Munsey Award recognizes an individual or organization that has bettered the pulp community, be it through disseminating knowledge about the pulps or through publishing or other efforts to preserve and foster interest in the pulp magazines we all love and enjoy.

   This year, a second award was presented: the Rusty Award, named after longtime Pulpcon organizer Rusty Hevelin. It was given to Ray Walsh, longtime dealer, convention organizer, and, with Robert Weinberg, publisher.

   Professor Garyn Roberts closed out this year’s programming with his memories of Ray Bradbury, the writer that he called a friend. Bradbury also happened to be a devoted fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

   Ending the evening was the convention’s Saturday night auction. It featured over 250 lots of material including a nice run of the large-sized Argosy from the early 1940s; over 50 issues of New Worlds Science Fiction, long the leading British science fiction magazine; 26 early issues of Weird Tales in good to very good condition; a complete set of Bantam’s Doc Savage paperbacks; several Arkham House first editions; a nice selection of Shadow pulps; the ultra-rare LA Bantam Book #13, Children’s Favorite Stories; a run of Who’s Who in Baseball from the 1930s; artwork by Michael Kaluta; and more.

   The highlights of the auction were two lots of Street & Smith’s People’s Magazine. Each of these sold for amounts far north of $1500. You’ll find the results of this year’s auction on the PulpFest website. Click the “2025 Auction” button at the top of the convention’s homepage.

   Once more, pulp fans socialized in the hotel’s lounge after the auction. Saturday’s informal gathering was billed as a “Barsoomian Bull Session.” Door prizes were available, thanks to Henry Franke, co-founder of ERBFest.

   This was the fourth time that PulpFest had hosted both Farmercon — which has been coming to PulpFest almost annually since 2011 — and ERBFest — a “convention within a convention” that began at PulpFest in 2021. Joining them was a third convention — Doc Con, a gathering of the fans of “The Man of Bronze.” It had been nearly a decade since the last Doc Con.

   According to PulpFest’s Mike Chomko and The Shadowed Circle’s Tim King, next year’s PulpFest will also be hosting a brand new convention: Shadow Con. We hope no one has been “clouding their minds” and that the rumor is true.

   Although the dealers’ room opened for a final time on Sunday, August 10, buying and selling opportunities were limited as dealers packed up and prepared for the drive home.

   PulpFest 2026 will take place July 30 through August 2 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Pittsburgh — Cranberry in Mars, Pennsylvania. The convention will be celebrating the centennials of Amazing Stories and Ghost Stories. Both magazines premiered in 1926. You can learn more by visiting pulpfest.com.

RAOUL WHITFIELD – Laughing Gas.  Steeger Books. paperback, 2021. Originally serialized in Black Mask,  February 1929 to October 1929.  Revised and reprinted in book form as Five, by Temple Field.

   In his introduction to the Steeger reprint, James Reasoner uses the term “word savagery” which was coined by Lester Dent to describe the quality Black Mask brought out in writers, and that certainly fits Raoul Whitfield though I prefer the Raymond Chandler’s term ‘the poetry of violence.” Anyway you put it, Raoul Whitfield was a master of the form, the third spoke of the wheel that included Hammett and Chandler as the best Black Mask has to offer.

   Laughing Gas was Whitfield’s first attempt at a novel length work, written as a series of tightly connected short stories and intended to be published as a fix-up novel. It ended up replaced by another Whitfield serial, Green Ice, that would become Whitfield’s first novel (and wisely, it is a better book) while Laughing Gas was rewritten and published as Five, under the by-line Temple Field. This trade paperback edition from Steeger Books Black Mask collection is the works first appearance in its original form since its publication in the 1929 pages of Black Mask.

   The book covers nine stories. Gary Greer, the two-fisted protagonist, sets out to avenge the murder of his Prosecutor father Stanford by gangsters who laughed while he died at their brutal hands. Greer, a pilot in charge of the local airport, sets out for revenge, and neither the law nor criminals are going to deter him in his singular minded pursuit.

   This is Mike Hammer country, a revenge story much like Whitfield’s similar Green Ice and savage is a fair description of what happens as Greer tracks down the five men who killed his father.

   Whitfield wrote as much or more aviation fiction as crime novels including several juvenile aviation novels. This one mixes the two genres, flying and hardboiled action and does so in a convincing tough guy voice that compels the narrative along like an express train.

   It is a far pulpier work than his best hardboiled novel, Death in a Bowl, a work that comes close to rivaling Hammett’s Maltese Falcon, but it reads surprisingly modern in style, another Mask attribute. The dark salon cars speeding down roads, vintage planes, and Tommy guns may be dated, but the writing is as contemporary as anything you’ll read today.

   
   In addition to revenge intrigue and murder there is a well handled romance that leads you to wonder how Hollywood missed this one. Of course they would have had to tone it down a bit because Greer is a fairly grim avenger adopting multiple identities, names, and faces as he takes his revenge on hoods with colorful names like Frenchy Lamotte, Doll Jacobs, Sal the Dude, and “Fifty Mile” Liseman.

   Whitfield just misses the quality that set Hammett and Chandler apart from the pack, and it is hard to define exactly what it is. It may be because he never quite finds that single voice protagonist (though Death in a Bowl comes close and Jo Gar is a fine creation) or spread himself too thin with his other pulp work. I can’t say exactly. I know at his best he writes as well as either Hammett or Chandler with that same word savagery Reasoner mentions, but he also writes with just the slightest bit less conviction and dedication.

   Granted there is a fairly contrived twist at the end that allows for a happy ending, but it’s the pulps and the kind of thing common in movies at the time, and I can’t bring myself to complain much. After all that an unconvincing path to a happy ending seems a small price to pay. You wouldn’t want Whitfield’s protagonist taking revenge on you because you messed with his happy ending, believe me.

   Just let him have it and lump it.

DASHIELL HAMMETT “$106,000 Blood Money.” First published in Black Mask, May 1927. Collected in The Big Nightmare (Random House, 1966).

   Sequel to “The Big Knockover.” The brother of a murdered gunman attempts to collect the reward money for bringing in Papadopolos. These two stories together vividly describe the underworld and its inhabitants, the temptation of crime, and its viciousness. (4)

DASHIELL HAMMETT “The Big Knockover.” First published in The Black Mask, February 1927. Collected in The Big Nightmare (Random House, 1966).

   Hoods from all over the country are imported into San Francisco to pull off a multimillion dollar double bank robbery, As the Continental Op investigates, most of the gunmen are found murdered, victims of a vicious double-cross. Papadopoulos, the headman, fools the OP and escapes. (4)

DASHIELL HAMMETT “Corkscrew.” First published in The Black Mask, September 1925. Collected in The Big Nightmare (Random House, 1966).

   A new deputy sheriff comes to a small town in the Arizona desert, His job is to clear out troublemakers for an irrigation company, but the story means more [than that even] before the anonymous deputy is discovered to be the Continental Op – simply by reflecting attitudes of the real West. (4)

RAOUL WHITFIELD – Border Brand. Steeger Books, softcover, August 2024. Originally serialized in Black Mask magazine, June through November 1928.

   Mac ’twas a fighter pilot in the war to end all wars. Then was a teller in a bank.

   Antonio Flores robbed the bank. And flew away with the cash in a single seater.

   Mac was the teller Flores held up.

   The bank fires Mac. Figure Mac didn’t try hard enough to stop Flores. Figure Mac was maybe in on it.

   So Mac decides to chase after Flores. Across the border to Mexico.

   There he teams up with a federal agent, name of Ben Breed.

   Breed is hell of a pilot too. And a gunner. As well as Mac and Flores. And air battles are the main action here.

   Whitfield does a nice job with the air battle descriptions, keeping me engaged though I’ve myself never been one to seek out air adventure. The other reason to read it is Whitfield’s prose. I think Whitfield maybe has the hardest, most staccato prose in showbiz. And that’s why I keep reading Whitfield and keep seeking him out. He’s a tonic. He’s spare. He’s terse. There’s no wasted word. Concision. Diamond cut. We can still learn a lot from Whitfield about how to say things briskly sans the bullshit.

   I liked it.