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 nemesis of crime pits brain and brawn against a Satanic slaughter scheme — battling modern pirates who glean millions in swag as innocent victims walk the plank to doom! Follow the Phantom as the world’s greatest detective uses every skill he has taught himself against Hellish murderers!
With the end of his magazine in 1953, The Phantom Detective seemed to drop out of circulation literally and out of the minds of fans. His longest lasting impact actually comes from two conventions within his twenty year run of stories. The only person to know The Phantom Detective’s true identity was Frank Havens. Keeper of this knowledge since the first story, Havens, as publisher of the city’s newspaper, often assisted The Phantom Detective with his cases, even acting as the one requesting his unique help, often at the behest of law enforcement. To summon the masked man, Havens had a red light installed atop the Clarion Building, one that would shine when the Phantom Detective was needed. This is definitely a precursor and most likely the inspiration for a much more famous signal that debuted in comics years later. It isn’t really a leap to connect Batman’s Bat Signal to the Phantom’s Clarion beacon. Two of the editors in the early days of Batman actually cut their teeth editing The Phantom Detective. Another impact, one that was more immediate on some of his Pulp counterparts, like The Spider, was the fact that The Phantom Detective carried a calling card of sorts as an identifier. To prove he was in fact the real Phantom Detective, he would show a badge of platinum fashioned into the shape of a domino mask.
The Phantom’s Greatest Gamble was originally published in the January 1941 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: Mysterious Happenings
Chapter 2: The Powers of Destruction
Chapter 3: Leaden Hail
Chapter 4: Waterfront
Chapter 5: The Trail of a Blue Sedan
Chapter 6: Bloody Scene
Chapter 7: The Phantom Pays Three Visits
Chapter 8: The Pindar Company
Chapter 9: Pleasant Grove, N.Y.
Chapter 10: A Long Chance
Chapter 11: A Little Close Questioning
Chapter 12: Mr. Gravitch’s Double
Chapter 13: Death on the Docks
Chapter 14: Explosion at Sea
Chapter 15: The New Newscaster
Chapter 16: Waterfront Brawl
Chapter 17: Dynamite!
Chapter 18: First Round with the Code
Chapter 19: Maury Shaughnessy
Chapter 20: Struggle Against Destruction
Chapter 21: SOS
Chapter 22: The Crucial Broadcast
Chapter 23: The Law Wins
Milton Bagby is a veteran radio announcer and voiceover specialist who first turned to audiobooks in 2010. Since then, Milton has worked on several hundred audiobook projects and is a 2017 Audie Awards winner, the audiobook industry's highest award. Drawing upon years of stage acting and the occasional bit part in films, Milton uses his experience to create characters that stand out in the ear of the listener.
“I am very much aware that a perfect stranger is going to invest many hours listening to me tell a story. I do my best to give the listener an experience in which the characters in that story come alive and sound real.”
When not behind a microphone, Milton is a writer. In addition to the well-received Rick Burkhart crime novels, Milton writes a line of 1950s style pulp stories, and is the author of dozens of magazine articles and two non-fiction books. Milton and his wife live in Nashville.
