Forged in war, The Phantom Detective wages a one-man battle on crime! Solving impossible mysteries and delivering his own justice, he is the underworld’s masked nightmare!
When a gigantic octopus of crime coils tentacles of doom about a great industry, threatening to strike at the heart of America, the Phantom Detective comes to grips with a mad dictator who broadcasts a crime wave from coast to coast! The Phantom fights a virus threatening to strike at the heart of America!
Although The Phantom Detective often faced the same sort of evil that other Pulp heroes came into contact with, there was something different about the adventures of Richard Curtis Van Loan. Multiple similarities can be drawn between The Phantom and his pulpish peers, including being a veteran of the Great War, being wealthy, and an unerring need to help others. Even with all of that, however, the concept of the masked man with the platinum domino mask as his personal badge had something others of its type did not - a certain simplicity. Van Loan, even with his unerring mission of justice, actually returned from the war as so many veterans do, looking for what was next, unsure of how to continue his life.
This unsure direction surely spoke to many readers of the Detective’s stories, a lot of them either veterans themselves or, more likely, victims of the insecurity the Great Depression caused. In The Phantom Detective, however, fans found a man who not only, like them, had lost his way, but also rediscovered it and took to a new path with dedication and ferocity. It would be easy to be inspired by such a character if you were a displaced veteran or adrift in the world. This likely led to the success of the magazine, its connection to the common man contributing to its twenty year run.
The Forty Thieves was originally published in the July 1939 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: Precious Stones
Chapter 2: The Abandoned Farm
Chapter 3: Playboy
Chapter 4: Automobiles
Chapter 5: Motor Conclave
Chapter 6: Aerial Attack
Chapter 7: Night Warfare
Chapter 8: Headquarters Fourteen
Chapter 9: The Super Spy
Chapter 10: The Red Flare
Chapter 11: Information on Tralojas
Chapter 12: Murder
Chapter 13: The Third Operation
Chapter 14: Test Car
Chapter 15: Plot and Counterplot
Chapter 16: Another Knife Victim
Chapter 17: The Relief Man
Chapter 18: On the Assembly Line
Chapter 19: The Freighter Profundo
Chapter 20: The Complicated Conspiracy
Chapter 21: General Gomerra
Chapter 22: The Double Masquerade
Chapter 23: End of the Forty-First Thief
