In the late 1930s, weird menace magazines gained surprising popularity. Mystery Tales was one of several in the genre from "Red Circle" magazines, aka Western Fiction Publishing Co. Mystery Tales began with its March 1938 issue. Other magazines in the Red Circle line were Star Detective, Uncanny Tales, Marvel Stories, and a huge catalogue of western, mystery, detective, sports and romance pulps. The horror and terror tales were famous for their lurid covers... at least by 1930s standards, that is. By 1940, the interest in the shudder pulps was lessening, and Mystery Tales closed its nineth and final issue in May 1940. Mystery Tales returns in these vintage pulp tales, reissued for today’s readers in electronic format.
Table of Contents:
5 Horror-Packed Novelettes
Curse Of The Jivaro
by Walter Ripperger
Sinister undercurrents of hate and gruesome revenge met Prendergast in that uncanny hell-house: horrible shrunken heads, the chilling death beat of tom-toms, all intertwined with the fate of the woman he loved and had lost to a cold-blooded fiend!
Daughter Of The Serpent
by John R. Knox
We were enmeshed in the coils of a barbaric serpent cult and ghastly tortures awaited us — for she was a beautiful Spanish maiden, and we were — men...
The Whispering Voices Of Madness
by Wyatt Blassingame
Out of a misty twilight world she came in all her weirdly lustful beauty — a sensuous creature of allure dragging me into a hell of burning blood-lust beyond all mortal power to bear!
The Scarlet Angel
by Edgar Rankin
Through ghastly torture and anguish, the curse of the Maharajah’s ruby brought frightful retribution to the fraternity and an innocent girl — for the mystic jewel had been ill used!
Black Pool For Hell Maidens
by Hal K. Wells
A dread inhuman monster lurked in that fetid pool deep in a leprous swamp, its infernal hide perfumed by cadavers... and Larry Kent’s sweetheart was next to run afoul the pulsing horror of that gibbering Thing...
5 Spine-Tingling Eerie Short Stories
Twelve Strokes To Doom
by Leon Byrne
It was a lonely madhouse, but the doctor was no madman... he had fiendish reason for mutilating Mary Marsh’s beautiful body...
Devil’s Masquerade
by Henry Kuttner
Guinea pigs for a fanatic scientist — that was the role of Myrna and myself that night our souls and bodies returned to ancient Spain and the dread tortures of the Inquisition!
When Passion Corpses Dance
by Saunders M. Cummings
In the eerie blue flame of that corpse-candle there was warning of bloody, hideous death... stifling terror gripped Janis, for his lovely wife was — where?
Fear’s Fiancées
by Cyril Plunkett
Kane’s word bound him not to interfere that night he left lovely Diana alone in a bloated-rat-ridden house with her grotesque grandfather and a lustful idiot!
Fiend Of Fate
by Omar Gwinn
l knew the tortures of a hundred hells that terrible night I saw my beloved bride Penelope, dancing lustfully, stark naked, in the arms of her blood cousin!
