Black Book Detective magazine was probably best known for its long-running series of adventure stories featuring the crimefighter known as The Black Bat. But The Black Bat didn't appear until six years into the magazine's run with the July 1939 issue. The magazine first hit the newsstands with the June 1933 issue. For the next six years, it tried different approaches. Issue one began with a featured novel and several backup short stories. The following year it started promoting "three new complete novels" in each magazine, but abandoned that approach after four issues. It then tried shorter novelets, combined with short stories. In 1935 and 1936, it tried the "weird menace" approach, featuring scantily-clad women in peril on the covers, then switched back to hard crime. In 1938 they tried featuring recurring characters in their main novel. Gentleman thief Raffles appeared in two consecutive issues. Jonathan Drake, Ace Manhunter appeared in three issues.
The editors struck gold with The Black Bat, who first appeared in the July 1939 issue. Supposedly blind District Attorney Tony Quinn was secretly the master crime fighter known as The Black Bat. The stories were credited to the house name of G. Wayman Jones, but in actuality were written mainly by Norman A. Daniels. The Black Bat stories ran exclusively in the bi-monthly Black Book Detective magazine until it finally printed its last issue in the Winter of 1953. Black Book Detective returns in these vintage pulp tales, reissued for today’s readers in electronic format.
Table of Contents:
A Complete Black Bat Novel
The Long Ago Murder
by G. Wayman Jones
Ten years before, Clyde Ainsley was held as a homicidal maniac — and now he confronts Tony Quinn with a strange and baffling account of crime that calls for swift action! Follow the Black Bat on the trail of a diabolical killer!
A Complete Novelet
Shroud Of Guilt
by Anthony Tompkins
Lieutenant Kenneth Loring sent a man to prison awaiting execution, and then found he had to go ahead and prove the man was innocent!
Avery’s Bones — Short Story
by Wayland Rice
The skeleton in the pond was certainly that of a man who was slain
Nail For A Noose — Short Story
by Robert Sidney Bowen
One thing led to another, and Bill Croft never knew where he’d land
The Psychological Approach — Short Story
by Ray Cummings
Peter Kinney’s girl knows an angle or two to help trap a killer
Nice Morning For Murder — Short Story
by Donald Bayne Hobart
Mugs Kelly finds two cold corpses waiting for him inside his office!
Off The Record
by The Editor
A live-wire department where readers and the editor get together
