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!
Follow the world’s greatest sleuth as he risks life and limb to combat a fiendish mass murderer who weaves an eerie legend into an evil tapestry of crime!
Street and Smith’s The Shadow magazine paved the way for what fans today refer to as Hero Pulps, magazines featuring heroic leads who were extraordinary in some form or fashion. Not one to let the opportunity to make a dime go by, Ned Pines, the man behind Thrilling Publications, sent his own crimefighting character into the mix in February 1933, capturing the second slot of such a magazine debuting just a month prior to Street and Smith’s other juggernaut, Doc Savage. Pines’ The Phantom Detective would take on the underworld and solve the unsolvable for 170 issues, ranking third in the hero pulps for most issues published, falling right behind Pulp’s two leading men, The Shadow and Doc Savage. Due to inconsistencies in its publishing schedule, however, The Phantom Detective does hold the title for longest running Pulp magazine, its last issue published in 1953, due to a number of factors, including uniqueness of stories written by multiple writers.
Although the title of the magazine was indeed The Phantom Detective, the lead character was referred to only as ‘The Phantom’ in the actual stories. The identity of this masked master sleuth was wealthy millionaire Richard Curtis Van Loan. Having served in World War One as a pilot known for his dogfighting prowess, Van Loan left the idle rich gadabout he’d been in the skies of battle and returned home seeking a mission, wanting to give something back to the city and world he lived in.
The Phantom and the Vampire Murders was originally published in the May 1940 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: The First to Die
Chapter 2: Chinese Chauffeur
Chapter 3: “Vampires Do Exist!”
Chapter 4: The Patched Corpse
Chapter 5: A Memory from Hungary
Chapter 6: The Bloody Blade
Chapter 7: The Claws of Death
Chapter 8: The Face at the Window
Chapter 9: The Vampire Repeats
Chapter 10: In the Tunnel
Chapter 11: Otto, the Torturer
Chapter 12: The Dead Alive
Chapter 13: Puzzle in a Knothole
Chapter 14: Lewis’ Confession
Chapter 15: The Body in the Tomb
Chapter 16: The Treasure of Death
Chapter 17: The Man in Black
Chapter 18: The Death Blast
Chapter 19: Accused!
Chapter 20: As the Phantom Saw It
