BLACK MASK – June 1940. Editor: K. S. White. Cover artist: Rafael DeSoto. Overall rating: **½.

ERLE STANLEY GARDNER “Tong Trouble” Ed Jenkins. Novelette. Ed Jenkins, the Phantom Crook, applies his talents on behalf of Chinese friends, and a tong war, threatened by an unsolved murder, is averted, Told in the obvious Gardner style, as we learn as a bonus how to panhandle on the street and some information about the Chinese people. (3)

ROGER TORREY “Too Many Angles.” Donovan. Novelette. A private detective by the name of Donovan takes on a case for a patent attorney and gets involved with several murders before he proves his client guilty of government sabotage. Violent. (2)

JOHN LAWRENCE “Body of Evidence.” Broadway Squad. Hackett of the Broadway Squad unwillingly provides an alibi for a released prisoner who threatens the life of everyone who helped send him up. (3)

PAUL ALEXANDER “Overseer of the Poor.” Short story (three pages long) based on an obscure law in upstate New York. (2)

DONALD S. AITKEN “The Same Old Oil.” Peanut oil on a billfold traps a killer. Obvious from title, otherwise the clues are hidden. (2)

H. H. STINSON “Clamp Down.” Novelette. Ken O’Hara. O’Hara of the L.A. Tribune is assigned to hush up political blackmail for an endorsed candidate, White slave trade and a rival San Francisco reporter also develop. (3)