‘The Other Detective Pulp Heroes’

The Other Detective Pulp Heroes is a nice little volume put out by Tattered Pages Press as the first in their “Pulp Vault Pulp Study” volumes in 1992. Written by pulp historian Wooda “Nick” Carr, with a cover by Frank Hamilton, its nearly 100 pages give information on a wide range of lesser known pulp detectives (40 or so), along with lists of all their appearances. We also get illustrations from the pulps.

Of course, “lesser known” may be a misnomer, as some of these characters are well know.

A few of the characters have been reprinted, at least partially. I’ve reviewed a few of them. These include characters like Mr. Death, Doctor Coffin, The Man in Purple, Major Lacy, and Dorus Noel.

Some of the more well-known characters listed here include the Park Avenue Hunt Club, Dan Turner, and Satan Hall.

Robert Leslie Bellem‘s Dan Turner is probably the longest running of the characters, from 1934 to 1950 in magazines such as Spicy Detective/Speed Detective, and Dan Turner Hollywood Detective. As a character who appeared in the spicy pulps, I hope I don’t need to explain this further. Bellem’s stories are well known for strange terms like calling guns “roscoes” that all go “ka-chow!” While I know several Turner stories have been reprinted, I don’t think anyone has tried to reprint them all.

The Park Avenue Hunt Club was a long running series by Judson P Philips that ran in Detective Fiction Weekly (and others) from 1934 to ’44. A popular series, it’s credited with inspiring other series. The Club is a set of vigilantes, all upper-crust types, who call themselves the “Park Avenue Hunt Club.” They are George Seville, a millionaire and former U.S. Intelligence officer; John Jericho, a big-game hunter and lover of adventure; and Arthur Hallam, the strategist of the group and ex-lawyer. They lived together in a house on Park Avenue, and the unofficial fourth member is Wu, their Chinese driver and houseman, who pitched in with his knife.

The whole series has been reprinted by the Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, but no one has yet to reprint the whole series in a more affordable format.

Satan Hall was another popular and long-running series from Detective Fiction Weekly (and others) from 1931 to 1954. Created by Carroll John Daly, Hall was a tough policeman who killed many criminals and answered only to the police commissioner. His appearance is most startling, with his ears being slightly pointed and his hair slicked down in a very extreme widow’s peak. I don’t think anyone has tried to reprint his stories, but I believe Altus Press plans to start doing so soon.

And as I noted, those are only some of the characters covered here. We get anywhere from half a page to two pages for each character.

If your interest is in pulp detectives, look for this volume. Maybe it will lead to more of these characters being reprinted. It’s unfortunate that this volume isn’t still in print. Works like this from major pulp historians/researchers need to be kept in print. A few of Carr’s works are still in print, but more need to be.