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!
The grinning Idol of the Seven Sacred Suns unleashes a reign of terror that sweeps the miracle land of the Treasure Island World’s Fair — and the nation’s greatest sleuth goes into action to probe a baffling mystery of invisible death! Follow the Phantom as he uncovers a nest of oriental crime and treachery!
Legendary for the fact that so many authors contributed to his legacy, The Phantom Detective’s stories have been described by some as inconsistent, shifting from one style of storytelling to another tale to tale. Although this obviously can be contributed to the ever-changing authors, it also bears to realize that this may have been somewhat intentional on the parts of the editors. Even though he was the second Pulp Hero to debut after The Shadow started the trend, it did indeed become commonplace for other Pulp publishers to follow with their own version of Hero Pulps. Many of these, such as Doc Savage and the Spider, settled into a routine, a basic story structure that, while readers returned issue after issue for some of the characters, never changed from the start to the ending of the series. This was the standard pattern for most Hero Pulps and likely a reason that many such magazines only lasted a handful of issues.
What occurred over the Phantom Detective’s historic twenty year run, however, was that variety provided much of the fuel needed to keep the character’s adventures going. Never knowing if they would encounter a street gang or a mad scientist, readers kept returning to the newsstand with their nickels and dimes each time The Phantom Detective Magazine had a new issue.
The Sampan Murders was originally published in the September 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: Murder by an Eye
Chapter 2: Strike of Hatchets
Chapter 3: Their “Peculiar” Way
Chapter 4: A Blade of “Justice”
Chapter 5: Vault of the Idol
Chapter 6: The Kidnapped Girl
Chapter 7: The Light of Murder
Chapter 8: Worse Than Murder
Chapter 9: Rising Tide of Death
Chapter 10: A Judge’s Queer Guests
Chapter 11: The Book of Terror
Chapter 12: The Soul of a Gamin
Chapter 13: Justice for a Killer
Chapter 14: The Pact of Death
Chapter 15: The Floating Voice
Chapter 16: The Lost Painting
Chapter 17: Stomach of the Idol
Chapter 18: Escape into Alcatraz
Chapter 19: Old Luy Wong’s Cunning
Chapter 20: Luy Wong Saves His Face
