Many years ago, I acquired a small pulp collection courtesy a person performing our country a service along the southern border. In preparing an abandoned home for demolition, with permission from the heir, several pulps were rescued from the premises. The pulps spanned 1942-1943 and 1948-1950. The four-year gap is accounted by the fact the original owner went to war, came back, kept acquiring pulps, then shifted to digests, which I also then had acquired. Only one issue of Mammoth Detective came out, being the August 1943 edition, and it is loaded with several excellent stories and illustrations galore. I’ve long been desirous of reading this issue, but life and other projects and pulps got in the way.
No more excuses.
The lead novelette No Risk Too Great by Harold Channing Wire takes place after Pearl Harbor’s bombing (December 7, 1941) but before the Japanese internment from Terminal Island, in February 1942. Mining-engineer Bill Haley is given the opportunity to help the United States government after being rejected from active duty due to an eye injury from dynamite prematurely detonating, affecting his vision. With mining skills and piloting abilities, he’s drawn into a secret mission taking him from Los Angeles to Terminal Island, and then into Baja California territory held by Mexico. Bill Haley is recruited by Stewart and his daughter to independently infiltrate the volcanic Guadalupe Island off the western coast of Baja California. The US Navy can’t be directly involved. Solid rumor suggests Japanese have acquired the rights to an old abandoned British mine (Fierro Grande) and whaling vessels have been sighted in the area. Dropped off in a rubber boat, the trio hike up the backside of the volcanic mine via the unguarded desert and discover Japanese forces are unloading dozens upon dozens of bombers, all holed-up inside the mine. Locating an original British-made shaft from above, they descend old steps and inside view gasoline drums and bombs. These planes may easily reach San Diego and other relevant military installations. With the aid of their mining skills, Stewart and Bill Haley detonate the gas drums and make haste to climb the steps whilst the entire cavern systematically collapses into itself, obliterating the aircraft within.
Blackmail in Blue Ink by Howard Browne features Wilbur Peddie’s 4th of 6 appearances in Mammoth Detective. Peddie is a skip-tracer employed by a department store, and he has some unusual characteristics. Drives an old Chevrolet and doesn’t drive over 30 mph. Doesn’t carry a gun, either. Peddie realizes something is amiss with a customer when addresses don’t match but the salesman has the gossip on her being a mistress. He begins to see something beyond the normal but is given explicit orders by his boss to bugger off until he discovers a letter from the man demanding all receipts destroyed. Peddie investigates, solves the crime, and nearly loses his own life in the process.
Helmar Lewis presents a very interesting look into the creation of a criminal in-the-making and his eventual possible failure in Meet Mr. Terror, a story that ought to have had a sequel or at least led into a series of unusual stories centered around its peculiarly evil protagonist. Mr. Terror is orphaned at age 10 and learns in the orphanage to become hardboiled. His only drawback? He can’t seem to shoot a gun to kill a person for the life of him. Despite this, he becomes a top gangster and frequently bludgeons them to death or into unconsciousness. When one of his men blabs to the police and blows up his entire scheme, he waits Jason Bourne style in the room, gun drawn. The man whines he didn’t do anything (yeah, he did) and waits certain death for Mr. Terror to pull the trigger. But he can’t force the finger to do the function. Instead, he finally gets up while the man is on his knees begging for mercy and reversing the grip, pistol whips the man to death instead. He walks out of the room and there ends the story, which seems to suggest further tales. So, what happened? Does Mr. Terror abandon a lifetime of crime and commit suicide, or go about his criminal enterprise but not shooting people? Despite my complaint, a superbly written story, for an author that only had fiction printed for a year-and-a-half for 1943-1944 and then vanished.
The editor in this issue’s Off the Blotter column laments that David Wright O’Brien went to Texas to train for war and hadn’t sent in a single manuscript in six weeks. Yet here we have O’Brien via his own Bruce Dennis alias contributing Murder by Memory while noting that Dennis is currently in the air force. The next issue featured a novella by O’Brien. Sadly, O’Brien, nephew to magazine editor Farnsworth Wright, was shot down flying over Berlin, dying on 11 December 1944, at the age of 26. Pete Weld is a private detective formerly employed with the State Attorney’s office. The tale takes place during Christmas time in Chicago. A mysterious gentleman (Middleton) hires Pete to cough up something relating to a Korean man, Kwal. Only problem is, Pete doesn’t know any such person. In keeping his composure after being paid $500, Middleton thinks Pete is playing coy and doubles the cash offer. He finds his apartment ransacked. A Korean there with a gun, states he got there second, the place already tossed. Making a play to wrest the weapon, the nameless Korean deposits the gun across Pete’s head. The rest of the story has Pete following a lead heard over the radio concerning hours previously the murder of one Mr. Kwal. Another murder occurs, he follows another lead, he’s concussed again, and given the flame-to-the-feet treatment. The reader already knows what Middleton is likely after, but not yet precisely what it is. And I won’t ruin the plot further, either. Suffice to say, this story was quite enjoyable.
In Gerald Vance‘s Red-Heads Make Riots, Terry, an ex-boxer turned bouncer at a swank nightclub operated by hoodlums, takes a sudden interest in a newly acquired lush redhead dame who isn’t taking a liking to one of his employer’s gunsels. Hearing a scream from the boss’s office, he bashes his large frame through the door and wrestles the lovely redhead free from the gunsel. In the process he also knocks out his boss and two other ex-fighters. Terry flings the girl free from the room and tosses the boss’s coat about her shoulders, as she is flimsily dressed. Escaping into the street, they hop in a cab and race away. Apparently cabs back then were restricted from speeding faster than 35 mph (this take place in Chicago) but his boss and the crew of hoodlums pursue in a Caddy without such restrictions. The cabbie, another ex-fighter but friendly towards Terry, despite the mph handicap, jukes and weaves through the darker alleys of Chicago and eventually loses their tail. Matters worsen when the girl discovers her sister missing from the apartment. Realizing he’s been kidnapped by the gang, Terry leaves her behind to return to the scene of the first act. All bedlam ensues when he eventually learns the girl is in a Chinese den. Terry knows the mob is in cahoots with the Orientals in dealing in drugs: cocaine, opium, you name it. Busting in, he’s quickly caught but luck prevails when a riot squad of police burst in upon his heels and mow down the deadliest gunsel. The rest are mopped up and Terry wakes up from passing out after being shot.
In the only pulp story to appear under the name of Frank Ray, Captain Brinner is fit to lose his mind when Father Burke insists on going to the 10th floor to bring down a cop killer. Earlier, Brinner riding along with Sergeant Thorne, spotted two suspicious young men run out of a bank. Thorne on his whistle draws in a fast dragnet. The police shoot on in the arm, bringing him down. The other is shot down into the gutter; but when a young officer rolls him, he finds a gat rammed into his guts and three rip-happy slugs tearing through his belly. The cop killer rolls to his feet and gains entrance to an apartment building via an alleyway and locks said door from the inside. Brinner orders the building surrounded and they slowly work each floor and apartment until the killer is located in 1001. He’s holed up with an old couple. If the cops come in, the old people get it first. Brinner decides to drop from the roof onto the iron balcony and work his way in from there. Only, Father Burke has other ideas when he learns the cop killer’s name is Joe Angelo, someone he recalls from the orphanage. Working his priestly racket, he manages to steal Brinner’s thunder and plan. Father Burke believes he can get The Killer’s Ear without further bloodshed. How he goes about the plan and the ultimate conclusion is a bit of irony as Father Burke as a child always wanted to be a policeman, but when he steps through that balcony window to face Joe Angelo, he finds himself in deep trouble facing a man who is not the Joe Angelo he imagined.
In Case of the Strangling Shadow, Inspector Grimm and his boon companion sergeant are attending a circus. The sergeant enjoys the acts openly while Inspector Grimm scarcely looks alive. The latter is known on the force as Grim Death, aptly nicknamed both for his skeletal image and his dark, morose, and rather pessimistic views on life and the cases he handles. While often remarking a case likely will remain unsolved, his record is nearly impeccable. He darkly remarks that the strong-man will likely die despite his health and strength one day just like snapping his fingers. Shockingly, he does just that. Backstage he is found on the ground, dead. Investigating, it’s found he was choked to death by a wire. But who could choke the strong-man without him tossing them off him? The ancient female crone, master of marionettes, had created a special puppet with a double loop of wire to garrote the herculean circus man to death. This work is handled by Paul Devrais, yet another byline having only one pulp appearance. A damn shame as Inspector Grimm ought to have featured in many more stories.
Over the years I’ve heard nothing but good words concerning Robert Leslie Bellem. Remarkably, despite the number of pulps I own, I had never read a single story by Bellem. Today I right that wrong! Sisterhood of Fear features private operator Jed Britt and his bulgy-eyed assistant Hank Ludlow. Someone is sending threatening notes to five dames that used to work together in a nightclub. Eventually dancing turned to stripteases and then to the coppers yanking the license. Years later, all five girls had faithfully kept in contact, despite various associates of the girls disapproving. Britt is paid $500 to act as bodyguard to the girls but finds himself knee-deep in one girl’s murder. When two more murders are pulled off before his own eyes, Britt must work fast miracles to save the remaining two girls, that is, assuming one of them isn’t the killer in disguise. The novelette maintained a steady pace, enjoyable, nonstop action, and the conclusion caught me unawares. Sure, the story has some plot holes like any work of fiction but I’m not looking for credibility. I am looking forward to my next Bellem read. The next issue of Mammoth Detective, a reader placed this as the worst story, stating it belonged in a 10-cent detective mag. Ouch!
William De Lisle supplies a cheeky case of Murder by Proxy. The narrator is a crime fiction writer. Two others are present: an inventor and an executant. Inventor Grimm is confident that there is no such thing as a perfect murder. The narrator is conned into creating one. The mission: kill Grimm. But not in reality. Just create a perfect murder and when Grimm has caused what would be his death, reveal the whole plan to him, including method, motive, etc., and proof of why the police would never search for anything beyond an accidental death. In doing so, the narrator causes Grimm to be fried to death. Or, does he? He discovers that the executant (Conway) never turned on nor off the electric current used to kill Grimm. He just led the author to believe he had. In doing so, Grimm never knew the current was active. The story ends with crime writer trying to figure out how to end the story. Tell the police the whole plot? Catch Conway in the act of stealing and/or concealing the blueprints from Grimm’s safe? Oh, the possibilities! So, he asks the readers, how should they like the story to end? (I wonder how many readers actually wrote in letters with their own conclusions).
This Little Pig Goes to Market by Stephen E. Chalet takes place during World War Two. The Germans have invaded and captured France, but the underground resistance continues to create havoc. Their current goal is to capture and kill the mysterious Le Cochon, the pig. He’s reputed to be a large, fat German. Little else is known about the man as no Frenchman has lived to see and tell. However, they decide play the oldest trick in the book: woman-bait. The woman turns down the attentions of all the Nazi soldiers (bizarrely, not once is Nazi even used in the story). The word boche is preferred. Word gets around about a gorgeous French girl holding out for a man of higher rank. Le Cochon hears of this girl and immediately realizes it is a ruse, but decides to see her personally and flip the script. From her he expects to crush the names of the resistance. Dressing as a French commoner and fluent in the language, he attends to the girl but makes some mistakes. His primary error is claiming to be from a region in France but failing to use the correct dialect. The author creates two other idiotic reasons that were not necessary to the plot.
Under the house name of Alexander Blade is The Night Has a Thousand Eyes. A woman is haunted by men staring at her daily. She turned state evidence against an oriental Yogi, a cultist. He was tried and hung for his crimes. Requesting assistance from Captain Belden, she’s informed the police can’t simply arrest people because they stare at her. She departs, disgusted and scared, and her entire flight home is pursued by watchful eyes, from windows, doorways, etc. She finally makes it home and falls asleep. Next day, Captain Belden phones to inform her that he had a man follow her and that the men must have given up staring at her as the officer didn’t see a soul around. Upon hearing this, she realizes she must be stark raving mad, has a heart attack, falls down a flight of steps, and breaks her neck. A snooze of a story printed under a byline known to have been used at a minimum by over 20 different pulp writers.
Bruno Fischer pens the very old tale of two high school friends interested in the same girl. Appearing under his alias Russell Gray is The Coward. The accompanying illustration tells the plot admirably. The young men take their dates out in canoes. The pair are both avid strong swimmers. One day, an oarlock falls off the canoe. Dropping anchor, the boys go down to retrieve it. Both surfaces, then dive again. Only this time, only one of the boys comes up. The girls panic, and finally the exhausted other boy dives again. He’s down a lot longer and still he’s the only one to surface. He claims to be tired and out of breath and can’t quite make the dive to the bottom to find his friend. Long story short, he’s been in love with the other girl, who had agreed to marry his friend. He handcuffed his friend’s ankle to a piece of sunken steel beam with the intention of his drowning to death. Then he would successfully unlock the corpse and drag it to the surface. He’d be dead, but still the hero brought him up, and the girl would fall for him instead for making the effort. Only, he turned coward, unable to touch the dead boy, nor draw near as the dead boy’s eyes were fixed upon him.
Small-town hick detective Paddy O’Sheen solves a murder in Leroy Yerxa’s O’Sheen’s Photo Finish. While viewing a film with his wife, a young lady sits on his opposite side. Eventually, her hand rests upon his. He shakes it off kindly and it falls upon his leg. He finally realizes the woman is dead. Police are phoned in. She was whacked with a bullet. The gun had a silencer. How do they know? The gun is in her purse. Paddy solves the murder quickly when he recalls a candid photo was taking of them entering the theater, proving the lady’s husband killed her after he stated he had dozens of witnesses proving he wasn’t there with his wife. A rather tame story, weak on plot, purely a filler story.
The magazine wraps up neatly with a solidly entertaining murder-mystery by Arthur Nelson, titled Frame-Up at Casa Blanca. I’d never heard of the author, so a little snooping reveals this to be an alias for the highly competent pulpster Arthur J. Burks. The story opens with Biff’s girlfriend Toni receiving an invite to her estranged millionaire grandfather’s estate. Biff is a large, strong man, little on the brains, but big on heart. Toni is a newspaper reporter. Arriving at Casa Blanca, they find the old man shot dead, twice in the chest. A .25 is on the ground. Martin, the chauffeur, walks in with a gun drawn on the pair, phones the police, intending to hold the pair for murder. Biff’s curious why a man that didn’t hear a gunshot should walk in with a gun. Distracted by Toni dropping her heavy purse, Biff assaults Martin and the pair get into a boxing match. Martin finally goes down after a sock to the jaw. Biff’s exhausted and learns from Toni that man isn’t just a driver; he is hired muscle, an ex-boxer. Now Biff feels relief from being winded, himself. The pair flee the scene. Toni remarks the gun was likely hers, stolen from her apartment. Say what? Seems she hasn’t been entirely honest with Biff. She knows someone has been following her and her residence had been ransacked. Nothing was missing but she didn’t think of the gun. Biff pulls off the road and demands to know the names of every relative, because up until receiving that letter from grandpa, he didn’t even know she had any family after her parents died. The pair pay visits to each of the relatives and Biff is certain that Wally, a grandson who gambles, is the culprit. But when his corpse is found in Toni’s car back at her residence by the local police, Biff decides the killer must be Big Jake, owner of the gambling business. Paying Big Jake a visit, he’s brought before Big Jake by two hoods. Revealing that Wally is dead gobsmacks Big Jake so much that Biff realizes he’s got the wrong man. That person was expecting Wally to pay off all old debts after inheriting from the deceased geezer. Toni phones in help to another newsman, who rescues Biff from BJ and his hoods. Exiting, they discover Toni not in the car. Her purse is there. Someone kidnapped her. Quick thinking over a bottle of rye and comparing notes, the newsman discerns the identity of the killer and that he is partnered up with Martin, the chauffeur. Realizing that Toni is in mortal danger and likely driven back to the estate, Biff’s informed that Martin’s life is worth zero. The killer will remove this last thread against himself, then set the scene for Toni to commit suicide. The police will be satisfied and the whole case will be neatly wrapped up with Toni dead and the police will still put the cuffs on Biff for earlier having assaulted Martin and fleeing the scene of a crime. Only, they discover Toni bound and gagged in a car, stolen by the killer. Freeing her, Biff leaves Toni with the newsman and goes to head off the killer before he can return. He’s shot in the shoulder and despite the agonizing pain, struggles to maintain pursuit. The police arrive on the scene and the killer in cliche manner falls off the precipice to his demise. Biff passes out, only to later awaken on a table, a doctor over him, extracting metal shrapnel of the bullet in his shoulder. Biff learns the old man’s Will dictated his millions be divided among his three relations equally, and the killer meant to remove Toni, meaning the money would be divided in half. The killer is NOT a relative; he married one of the females, knowing the contents of the Will in advance as he is a lawyer. Undoubtedly he would have eventually married his wife and made off with the inheritance.
Page 263 features a biography on author Helmar Lewis. This same bio also appears on Page 200 of the July 1943 issue of Amazing Stories. It reveals he placed articles under the alias Luis de Hermano via Billboard Magazine and had educational pamphlets published as Hugh Morris. Ironically, of these that are for sale online, none of the sellers realize the author is Helmar Lewis. Later an encyclopedic work as Glenn Frank.
The issue is also filled with crime articles, FBI most-wanted requests, and articles.