The girl was scared and wouldn’t talk — but her fear told the world’s greatest sleuth more than words when he investigated a strange and baffling case of murder at a television station! Avarice and the lust for power sponsor a program of death on a channel of mystery!
The Phantom Detective’s name is a perfect description of Thrilling Publications’ own answer to The Shadow. Richard Curtis Van Loan undertook a rigorous training program that not only turned him into a fine physical specimen, but also honed apparently natural abilities to think critically and solve problems and mysteries. Becoming an expert in crime detection and all the sciences related to it, Van Loan most definitely earned the Detective part of his alter ego’s name. The Phantom half of the name was also earned by his dedication to his mission, to take on the underworld single handedly, mostly. Focused on his identity remaining a secret and being able to get out of any jam he might get into, the millionaire turned masked man taught himself to be a master escape artist and a wizard at disguises. Over the course of 170 stories, The Phantom Detective assumes several identities, including chemist Dr. Paul Bendix and Lester Cornwell.
Although the magazine was The Phantom Detective, the character in the lead story went by two different names in each issue. Born Richard Curtis Van Loan, he 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 had a direct impact on his future as The Phantom, what the character was called in the series, never The Phantom Detective.
The Video Victims was originally published in the Spring 1951 issue of The Phantom Detective Magazine and is read with pulse pounding intensity by award winning voice actor Milton Bagby.
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: Empty House
Chapter 2: The Mark of Murder
Chapter 3: A Bum With a Manicure
Chapter 4: Threat of Danger
Chapter 5: No Help Wanted
Chapter 6: Hilltop House
Chapter 7: Signal Fire
Chapter 8: Dead Man’s Identity
Chapter 9: The Phantom’s Trap
Chapter 10: Deadly Double
Chapter 11: Sky-high
Chapter 12: Talk or Die
Chapter 13: Bullet to Oblivion
Chapter 14: The Second Corpse
Chapter 15: Dead Man From Texas
Chapter 16: Mysterious Prisoner
Chapter 17: Flaming Attack
Chapter 18: Pillar of Fire
Chapter 19: Motive for Murder
Chapter 20: Two Confessions
