Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: G-Men, November 1935

As some of you know, I’m a long-time fan of the Dan Fowler series. Fowler, ace agent of the F.B.I., had his adventures chronicled in the pages of the pulp G-MEN (later G-MEN DETECTIVE) for many years, first under the house-name C.K.M. Scanlon and then later under the real names of the various authors who contributed novels to the series. The November 1935 issue of G-MEN, sporting a cover possibly by Richard Lyon, contains the second Dan Fowler novel, which has a great title: “Bring ’Em Back Dead”.

I don’t own this issue, but I do have a copy of BRING ’EM BACK DEAD, a great collection from Black Dog Books that reprints the first three Dan Fowler novels. I read and reviewed the first one, “Snatch!”, a while back, and now I’ve moved on to the second novel in the series. In this one, Fowler and his friend and fellow agent Larry Kendal are after a gang responsible for multiple thefts of silk shipments once they’ve arrived from the Orient and are on their way to wholesalers in the United States. There’s a great sequence on board a train that takes up the first part of the story, with shootouts, chases, and the grisly murder of a young agent. The crooks get away, but with Dan Fowler on their trail, you know they’ll run out of luck sooner or later.

The Fowler novels are a very appealing blend of well-done procedural drama and terrific action scenes. That’s the case in this one as Fowler and Kendal prove to be dogged investigators, as usual, but can also throw a punch or handle a tommy gun with great skill. Beautiful blond Sally Vane, the love of Dan’s life, joins the Bureau after helping out as an amateur in the previous novel and comes in for her own share of the action.

Like “Snatch!”, “Bring ’Em Back Dead” was written by the creator of the series, George Fielding Eliot, under the C.K.M. Scanlon name. Most of the Fowler novels I’ve read have been from later in the series, but I really like these early ones. I give a high recommendation to the Black Dog Books reprint volume, which is available in both e-book and paperback editions.

Since I don’t own the actual pulp issue, I haven’t read the two backup stories, but they’re by Tom Curry, whose Westerns I enjoy, and Joe Archibald, whose work is kind of hit-and-miss for me, but many of his stories are good. I suspect I’ll be reading another Dan Fowler story relatively soon. It’s a great series. And it occurred to me while I was reading this one that it’s a shame Republic Pictures never made a Dan Fowler serial directed by William Witney and John English and starring Clayton Moore as Dan. Well, I can imagine it, can’t I?

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: G-Men Detective, April 1946

“Escape From Alcatraz”, from the April 1946 issue of G-MEN DETECTIVE, is another of the Dan Fowler stories that’s available on-line. It was published a couple of issues after “Diamonds Across the Atlantic”, also written by Edward Churchill, which I reviewed a couple of weeks ago.

I thought that other Churchill story was okay, but “Escape From Alcatraz” is considerably better. It opens with the escape of the title, as gangster Killer Joe Boyd makes a successful getaway from the Rock and then disappears. The FBI, represented by our heroes Inspector Dan Fowler and Special Agent Larry Kendal, tracks him to a small town in Washington state not far from the Canadian border. Fowler and Kendal take off for the Pacific Northwest while Special Agent Sally Vane tries to track down the escaped killer’s girlfriend.

Then Churchill springs a nice twist in the plot pretty early on, and the case takes on a broader sweep that involves police corruption, smuggling, and a missing fortune in cash and negotiable bonds.

“Escape From Alcatraz” reads like a fairly realistic law enforcement procedural at times, although there are plenty of shootouts and fistfights and chase scenes along the way, too. Churchill certainly doesn’t forget that his story is being published in a pulp. His style is a little flat at times, but he keeps things moving along at an entertaining clip. Also, it’s hard not to like the trio of Fowler, Kendal, and Vane. They’re not exactly Perry Mason, Paul Drake, and Della Street, but a little of that same camaraderie comes through at times.

I read the e-book version of the Fowler story and don’t own the pulp, but as you can see, the cover is a good one and actually represents the lead novel pretty well. There are some good authors with stories in there, too, including Roger Torrey, Norman A. Daniels, and Robert Sidney Bowen. If you happen to have a copy of this one, it ought to be worth pulling down from the shelf and reading. Or you can find the whole thing on the Internet Archive here.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: G-Men Detective, Winter 1946

I don’t own a copy of this pulp, but the Dan Fowler lead novel, “Diamonds Across the Atlantic” by Edward Churchill, used to be available as an inexpensive e-book. It appears to be gone from Amazon now, but it's still on my Kindle, so I read it recently. I’m going to be writing a Dan Fowler story myself in a few months, so I have to get in the proper frame of mind. Not to mention, I always enjoy the Fowler yarns that appeared in G-MEN and G-MEN DETECTIVE.

This story finds Inspector Dan Fowler of the F.B.I. on the trail of a gang that robbed a train traveling between New York and Detroit. Assisted as usual by fellow agents Larry Kendal and Sally Vane (Fowler’s girlfriend, but they can’t really get serious because they have jobs to do; you know how that goes), he soon discovers that the robbery is connected to a bunch of Nazi saboteurs smuggled into the country on a fishing boat that docked in Boston. The object of the robbery is a secret at first, but I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler (it’s right there in the title) to reveal that what everybody’s after is a bunch of industrial diamonds that the failing German war machine desperately needs. (By the time this issue was published, the war had been over for almost a year, but clearly, this Fowler novel was written much earlier.)

The trail of the Nazis and the diamonds leads from Detroit back to New York and then on to Miami and ultimately Brazil. Our heroes get shot at, knocked out, and thrown off speeding trains. There’s plenty of action, as well as some actual detective work by Fowler. The Fowler novels were never actually police procedurals, but they came close at times. Everything wraps up in a satisfying, high-flying climax.

Edward Churchill wrote ten Dan Fowler novels, some under his own name and some under the house-name C.K.M. Scanlon. He also wrote several dozen other stories for various detective, sports, and aviation pulps. He’s not much remembered these days, probably because his writing style was a little flat and bland at times. But on the other hand, he could put together an exciting, interesting plot, as he does in “Diamonds Across the Atlantic”. I wouldn’t put this one in the top rank of Dan Fowler stories, but I enjoyed it quite a bit and it probably won’t be long before I read the other Churchill entry I have, “Escape From Alcatraz”.

The rest of this issue, according to the Fictionmags Index, features stories by Norman A. Daniels (writing as Wayland Rice), Johnston McCulley, David X. Manners, and Curtiss T. Gardner. Daniels and McCulley are always worth reading. I haven’t sampled any work from the other two. But it looks like a good issue overall, with a nice cover.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: G-Men, May 1937

The red and yellow color scheme that was so common on Western pulps made it onto covers in other pulp genres as well, for example this issue of G-MEN. I don't know the artist, but I want to say it might be Richard Lyon. I've really enjoyed the Dan Fowler stories I've read over the years and ought to read more of them. The one in this issue of probably by Charles Greenberg, who wrote some Phantom Detective novels that I liked. Tom Curry, Steve Fisher, and Westmoreland Gray have short stories in this issue. Curry's Westerns are long-time favorites of mine.

The League of Dead Patriots - Andrew Salmon

I've read quite a few of the original Dan Fowler novels from the pulp G-MEN and always enjoyed them. THE LEAGUE OF DEAD PATRIOTS is a new Fowler novella written by Andrew Salmon, one of the stalwarts of the New Pulp movement. I haven't read much New Pulp, but I really enjoyed this one.

FBI agents Dan Fowler, Larry Kendal, and Sally Vane are in California trying to break up a black marketeering ring when they come across a connection to a Japanese internment camp in the area. The case is also complicated by the involvement of the beautiful crimefighter known as the Domino Lady, another pulp character who's actually had more stories about her written and published in this era than during her original run. Another, much more well-known pulp hero makes a cameo appearance as well.

Salmon keeps the pace perking along nicely and has a good grasp of the characters. I found the Domino Lady to be pretty interesting and actually bought an e-book collection of the original pulp stories about her. Once I've read that I might give some of the other New Pulp volumes a try.

Christmas Books

I hope everyone had as good a Christmas as I did today. All four of us were together, the food was plentiful and delicious, I even got a little work done early, and there was some top-notch reading material under the tree, among other things. It was a fine Christmas, and tonight I count myself among the luckiest of fellows.