In a smart Long Island suburb, mysterious death strikes a clam-digger, plunging the Phantom Detective into desperate peril as he fights to expose a baffling slaughter conspiracy!
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.
Knowing that crime was a universal concern, The Phantom Detective’s stories often led with brief passages, editorials in a way, pointing out allegedly real criminals and actual criminal actions. Each of these blurbs were essentially calls to action, summoning the reader to, like The Phantom Detective, take up the fight against crime, in completely legal ways, of course.
The Tidewater Murders was originally published in the November 1946 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: High and Low Degree
Chapter 2: Two Discoveries
Chapter 3: The Price of Death
Chapter 4: Johnny Lynch Has a Beat
Chapter 5: The Phantom Is Restless
Chapter 6: His Murder Exaggerated
Chapter 7: Thrill Killer
Chapter 8: The Woman in the Case
Chapter 9: The Monster Man
Chapter 10: A Crab, a Lobster, a Clam
Chapter 11: Late Callers
Chapter 12: Family Troubles
Chapter 13: Cottage on the Beach
Chapter 14: Stabbed in the Back
Chapter 15: Keepsakes
Chapter 16: Half-a-Million Holdup
Chapter 17: A Killer Killed
Chapter 18: The Rendezvous
Chapter 19: Battle of the Bowling Alley
Chapter 20: Back to the Quiet Life
