Black Book Detective magazine was probably best known for its long-running series of adventure stories featuring the crimefighter known as The Black Bat. But The Black Bat didn't appear until six years into the magazine's run with the July 1939 issue. The magazine first hit the newsstands with the June 1933 issue. For the next six years, it tried different approaches. Issue one began with a featured novel and several backup short stories. The following year it started promoting "three new complete novels" in each magazine, but abandoned that approach after four issues. It then tried shorter novelets, combined with short stories. In 1935 and 1936, it tried the "weird menace" approach, featuring scantily-clad women in peril on the covers, then switched back to hard crime. In 1938 they tried featuring recurring characters in their main novel. Gentleman thief Raffles appeared in two consecutive issues. Jonathan Drake, Ace Manhunter appeared in three issues.
The editors struck gold with The Black Bat, who first appeared in the July 1939 issue. Supposedly blind District Attorney Tony Quinn was secretly the master crime fighter known as The Black Bat. The stories were credited to the house name of G. Wayman Jones, but in actuality were written mainly by Norman A. Daniels. The Black Bat stories ran exclusively in the bi-monthly Black Book Detective magazine until it finally printed its last issue in the Winter of 1953. Black Book Detective returns in these vintage pulp tales, reissued for today’s readers in electronic format.
Table of Contents:
A Complete Black Bat Novel
The Lakeside Mystery
by G. Wayman Jones
When Special District Attorney Quinn takes a trip to Florida, the Black Bat is right on hand to combat an international combine of killers, crooks and kidnappers! Follow the Nemesis of Crime as he accepts the challenge of grim foes!
A Complete Novelet
Murder Makes The Luck
by Norman A. Daniels
Innocent bystander Hank Ames suddenly becomes involved in a subtle and mysterious suicide-slaughter plot that defies all unraveling!
Measured For Murder — Short Story
by Nels Leroy Jorgensen
To square things for a dead pal, Black Burton bucks blackmailers!
The Key To Danger — Short Story
by Wayland Rice
Bill Jordan is headed straight for the hot seat — as his own killer!
Listen For Death — Short Story
by Roger Fuller
It looked like an open-and-shut suicide when they found the corpse...
Off The Record
by The Editor
A live-wire department where readers and the editor get together.
