Introducing Secret Agent “X”, Man of Mystery and Destiny!
Men with skulls for faces—these were the victims of that terrible trio who met in a hidden room. And Secret Agent “X” went against them, daring the bottled torment of their deaf-mute slaves. In a desperate battle of wits at the gateway of destruction.
At the end of the Depression year of 1933, Street & Smith had broken new ground when they launched The Shadow Magazine in 1931. Doc Savage came two years later. As did The Phantom Detective.
In the Fall of ’33 Popular Publications released both The Spider and G-8 and His Battle Aces. The public was obviously hungry for heroes. And editor Rose Wyn decided that her outfit had to offer one too!
With top writer Paul Chadwick, she brainstormed Secret Agent “X”, uncanny composite of Doc and The Shadow, with a dash of the Phantom thrown in. The first issue appeared at the end of 1933 with a February 1934 cover date.
A nameless mystery man with a wartime past in the Intelligence service, declared dead by the Department of Justice, and backed by a shadowy group of powerful philanthropists, Secret Agent “X” took on the toughest assignments of the dirty thirties. Operating out of the half-haunted Montgomery Mansion, “X” was also known as the Man of a Thousand Faces. A past master of disguise, he infiltrated the Underworld to crush crime in all of its hideous manifestations.
For Secret Agent “X”, Rose Wyn decided to pit him against villains who were maestros of unbridled horror. Melodrama was the rule of the day. But Secret Agent “X” plunged into maelstroms of raw bloodlust undreamed of by The Shadow and Doc Savage. His foes were truly depraved. Terrorists. Torturers. Extortionists. Kidnappers. Stranglers. Fiends. Arsonists. These were the types of torn-from-the-tabloids master criminals “X” hunted. It was grim fare.
The Torture Trust ripped from the pages of Secret Agent “X” magazine, February 1934 and read with chilling intensity by Milton Bagby.
Chapter 1: Night Get-Away
Chapter 2: Forced Testimony
Chapter 3: The Agent's Hide-Out
Chapter 4: Police Net
Chapter 5: The Acid Thrower
Chapter 6: Sinister Summons
Chapter 7: Masters of Death
Chapter 8: Terrible Seconds
Chapter 9: The Murderers Strike
Chapter 10: Torture!
Chapter 11: A Cry In The Dark
Chapter 12: Trapped!
Chapter 13: The Plunge
Chapter 14: The Mark Of The Agent
Chapter 15: The Inspector Arrives
Chapter 16: The Terrible Trio
Chapter 17: Across Dark Waters
Chapter 18: The Raid
Chapter 19: Mysterious Instructions
Milton Bagby is a veteran radio announcer and voiceover specialist who first turned to audiobooks in 2010. Since then, Milton has worked on over two dozen audiobook projects as a narrator or producer. Drawing upon years of stage acting and the occasional bit part in films, Milton uses his experience to create characters that stand out in the ear of the listener.
“I am very much aware that a perfect stranger is going to invest eight or ten hours listening to me tell a story. I do my best to give the listener an experience in which the characters in that story come alive and sound real.”
When not behind a microphone, Milton is a writer. In addition to the well-received Rick Burkhart crime novels, Milton writes a line of 1950s style pulp stories, and is the author of dozens of magazine articles and two non-fiction books. Milton and his wife live in Nashville.
