JOHNSTON McCULLEY “The Murder Note.” The Green Ghost #5. Novelette. First published in Thrilling Detective, January 1935. Collected in The Swift Revenge of the Green Ghost, Altus Press, paperback, 2012. Reprinted in Shadow Justice: Classic and New Tales of Pulp Magazine Costumed Heroes, FuturesPast Editions, edited by ??, Kindle, 2016.

   I’m not exactly sure why it is that ordinary people take it up on themselves to dress up in costumes to fight criminals, but enough of them did for pulp collectors of our era to create a entire subcategory of hero pulps to include them in. (I’m not talking about comic books. They came along later and knowing a good thing when they saw it, then came the deluge.)

   It was probably an individual thing. In Danny Blaney’s case, he was framed by criminals and lost his official standing as a cop, and to get revenge on all such gangsters, takes his fight against the underworld by fighting them directly, putting on a green hood and gloves and becoming the Green Ghost. While doing the work of the law, he holds no good feeling for the cops who did not stand up for him, either.

   There were in all seven of his adventures that were recorded in the pages of Thrilling Detective, a second-rate detective pulp, between March 1934 and July 1935. If “The Murder Note” is an example, all of these tale were minor and undemanding. The idea of dressing up as the equivalent of a “caped crusader” was, however,  and still is, an idea that catches the imagination of many readers, then and now.

   In “The Murder Note” Danny is about to bring a mobster by the name of Rod Rordan to justice, only to find him dead in his apartment, already killed by another gang who plan on Danny being charged with the crime. A note so stating, mocking him, is left at the scene of the crime, a note that cannot be used as evidence, however, as it is written in disappearing ink.

   The story from here on out is pure action. Nothing more, and as the wise pundits always say, nothing less, with no particular twist to the tale in pages to come. It’s quite forgettable, in fact, but it doesn’t stop sellers from asking $494.99 and up for a copy of the Altus Press collection, now apparently out of print.