Wed 20 Mar 2019
Pulp Stories I’m Reading: RICHARD SALE “The House of Kaa.”
Posted by Steve under Pulp Fiction , Stories I'm Reading[7] Comments
RICHARD SALE “The House of Kaa.” The Cobra #2. Short story. First published in Ten Detective Aces, February 1934. Reprinted in The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps, edited by Otto Penzler (Vintage Crime, softcover, November 2007). Collected in The Cobra: The King of Detectives (Altus Press, 2009).
The pulp magazines were filled with all kinds of detective heroes, from cops to PIs and pure amateurs, but in their midst were numerous self-appointed vigilantes, long before Don Pendleton and Mack Bolan came along. Such a one is Dean Bradley, a common enough name, but in his guise as “The Cobra,” his penchant for killing the villains he meets is enough to instill the fear of sudden death into the minds of countless others.
His favorite method of disposing of the various criminals he tracks down? Cobra venom, administered by poisoned darts propelled from a blowgun disguised as a cigarette holder. The miscreants in “The House of Kaa,” busily smuggling priceless jewels from India to England in the stomachs of royal pythons, are no different, and they are hardly a match for The Cobra.
As for Richard Sale, the author, he later became well known as both a novelist (Lazarus #7) and screenwriter (Suddenly). Everyone has to start somewhere!
The Dean Bradley aka “The Cobra” series —
Terror Towers (ss) Ten Detective Aces Jan 1934
The House of Kaa (ss) Ten Detective Aces Feb 1934
The Grinning Ghoul (ss) Ten Detective Aces Mar 1934
March 21st, 2019 at 5:42 am
After NOT TO NARROW, NOT TOO DEEP, I read a lot of Richard Sale, and I always regretted it.
March 21st, 2019 at 9:22 am
Well, I’ll play Devil’s Advocate. Sale wrote one of the most entertaining crime novels about Hollywood, IMO — BENEFIT PERFORMANCE. The novel has a lot wacky pulpy plotting, but I enjoyed every word. I’ve not read any of his pulp stories, but I probably should. He seems to be weird enough to appeal to my outre tastes.
March 21st, 2019 at 9:24 am
I don’t know but what you’re mostly alone in that opinion, Dan, but in terms of his pulp fiction, I like his Daffy Dill stories a lot, maybe more than some of his other work.
Here’s the link to one of those I reviewed on this blog a while back:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=57570
March 21st, 2019 at 10:40 am
I like most of the Sale I’ve read. The Cobra stories are collected by Altus Press.
March 21st, 2019 at 11:02 am
I’d totally forgotten about the Altus Press collection, Rick. Thanks for reminding me. I’ve just added the info to the review, along with a cover photo of the book itself.
March 21st, 2019 at 5:28 pm
Sale wrote THE WHITE BUFFALO, a moody and enjoyable western novel.
Haven’t read anything else by him.
March 21st, 2019 at 7:09 pm
Sale did a mix of great and odd work in the pulps, from some in the spicy line to sheer pulp nonsense like the Cobra to the much better Daffy Dill stories.
Aside from his novels he also was a successful film director (TICKET TO TOMAHAWK, ABANDON SHIP), and television producer (YANCY DERRINGER).
He’s one of the few pulpsters (Frank Gruber is another) to have such a diverse career from bestsellers to film and television.