Forged in war, The Phantom Detective wages a one-man battle on crime! Solving impossible mysteries and delivering his own justice, he is the underworld’s masked nightmare!
Who was the mysterious “Faceless One” that brought a grim menace of sudden baffling death? Follow the Phantom on the breath-taking trail of a ghastly series of sinister crimes perpetrated by a super-criminal who holds promissory notes for the lives of his victims.
Born Richard Curtis Van Loan, the man who would wear the domino mask in his own magazine was a child of wealth. Orphaned at an early age, Van Loan found a father figure of sorts in newspaper publisher Frank Havens, a relationship that would have a direct impact on his future. Not only did Van Loan share his playboy status with characters both before his creation and after it, he also had something in common with many other Pulp heroes, having served in World War One, specifically as a pilot. Returning from the war, whatever idleness he’d had before was now absent from Van Loan. Struggling to find his purpose, he accepted a challenge from Frank Havens to solve a crime that law enforcement could not. Succeeding at this, the haggard war veteran and millionaire felt he had found his purpose, not something born out of personal tragedy as so many other heroes had, but out of a need to do good, to help others. Having been the epitome of a playboy prior to the war, Van Loan recognized he would need certain skills to follow his new mission. To this end, he taught himself to be a master at disguise, an escape artist, a skilled fighter, and most importantly, an expert in detection and criminology. Once believing himself suitably ready, he donned a domino mask, not the top hat so famously depicted on each of the magazine’s covers and became The Phantom Detective.
‘Notes of Doom’ was originally published in the June 1935 issue of The Phantom Detective Magazine and is read with pulse pounding intensity by award winning voice actor Milton Bagby.
