Out of the night comes a menacing winged figure! Blind district attorney Tony Quinn takes his battle for justice from the courtrooms to the streets, battling evil as The Black Bat!
The mysterious slaying of a political leader is a signal that sets Tony Quinn and his aides on the track of a clever, corrupt conspiracy — and puts them in pursuit of a host of law-defying killers!
Even though The Black Bat donned a mask and outfit to carry on his fight against crime, that alter ego did not drift too far from his actual identity, Tony Quinn, Special Attorney. As both Quinn and The Black Bat, he fought evil, going after the underworld with tools tailor made to each identity, the law for Quinn and guns for The Black Bat. It wasn’t like putting the mask on made Quinn someone else, it simply gave him the ability to go outside of his own moral code and to strike at those who would do innocents harm. This aspect of the character is one of the likely contributing factors to the longevity of the series.
Even by 1939, readers still sought out Pulp magazines primarily for escapism. This became even more important when World War II began in earnest in just over a year. Needing a way to deal with the real world, readers of all types and ages turned to Pulps to get a break from reality. Even with that, however, they also tended to connect strongly with characters that they could identify with in some way. The Black Bat provided this kind of connection. Tony Quinn was a wounded soul, a man who fought his way back from blindness with a mission to strike out against evil. Even though a wealthy attorney, Quinn went after criminals that haunted headlines and threatened common people every day. This very probably proved important to readers, giving them multiple reasons to cheer The Black Bat onto victory.
Thrill to Thirty-One Deadly Guns, originally published in Black Book Detective #83 January 1949 and read with two fisted excitement by award winning voice actor Milton Bagby.
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: Courthouse Kill
Chapter 2: Man Ready to Die
Chapter 3: The Black Bat
Chapter 4: The Facts of Murder
Chapter 5: Horse Trainer
Chapter 6: Underground Route
Chapter 7: Man in the Wood-Box
Chapter 8: Gunshots in the Night
Chapter 9: The Teeth of the Trap
Chapter 10: Disappearing Black Bat
Chapter 11: Four Suspects
Chapter 12: The Man in the Morgue
Chapter 13: Kill or be Killed
Chapter 14: Prison Lawyer
Chapter 15: Dying Man’s Statement
Chapter 16: The Final Clues
Chapter 17: Killer’s Move
