Magic meets mystery as George Chance battles crime as the Green Ghost! Thrills, legerdemain, and suspense — all courtesy of the most extraordinary man-hunter the world has ever known!
Follow the Super-Detective as he tackles the perilous and baffling case of the Prophecies of Death — tearing open a tortuous tangle of mystery when magic meets murder!
Even though The Green Ghost only appeared in fourteen stories, the character is still rather well regarded among pulp fans. One of the primary reasons for this is likely the way in which the stories are written. First, the lead character, though fighting crime often in a scary outfit and seriously glowing like he’s just returned from the dead, is a solid character outside of the mask. George Chance, skilled stage magician and likely self trained criminologist, spends as much time working on mysteries as himself as he does behind the Green Ghost’s mask. And, yes, even though he is a celebrity of some note in the tales, he still has that ‘common man’ feel that allows readers to relate to him, to see themselves standing alongside him taking on criminals.
Also, the Green Ghost stories are of a simpler construction than many contemporary pulp tales. The plotting is straightforward, not complicated and tangled. The fact that there is a plot actually takes these tales far beyond many pulp stories. These stories are mysteries as well as being pulp tales, and this fact was not lost on G. T. Fleming-Roberts, the author. He worked to construct believable whodunits to keep the reader engaged. It is obvious in the stories that he wanted every loose end to go to a logical conclusion, even going as far as relying on his personal library of technical manuals on crime as well as actually experimenting with some of his ideas to make sure the crime was viable.
The Ghost Strikes Back was originally published in the pages of The Ghost Super-Detective magazine in the Spring of 1940 and is read with mysterious and magical force by Roger Price.
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: Murder Is No Laughing Matter
Chapter 2: I Call Up the Dead
Chapter 3: The Box of Thorns
Chapter 4: Blood and Rouge
Chapter 5: The Man with Claws
Chapter 6: On the Big Black Dot
Chapter 7: Murder Motive
Chapter 8: Magnus Makes His Pinch
Chapter 9: A Brace of Thugs
Chapter 10: Warning on the Wall
Chapter 11: The Avenger
Chapter 12: The Road Goes Nowhere
Chapter 13: Spirit Temple
Chapter 14: Guns of the Racket
Chapter 15: I Warn the Doctor
Chapter 16: Murder Flame
Chapter 17: Shake-down
Chapter 18: Hide and Seek
Chapter 19: Tomorrow’s Murder
Chapter 20: Coin of the Damned
Chapter 21: The Fourth Prediction
Chapter 22: I Meet the Murderer
Chapter 23: Stalemate
Chapter 24: The Fifth Prediction
Chapter 25: The Essential Clue
Chapter 26: The Leper
Chapter 27: The Finger of Light