Pulp Adventures #19 (Fall 2015) is the fifth issue of the new version from Bold Venture Press. We get a collection of pulp fiction, and some new stuff, all under a Norman Saunders crime cover. As I’ve noted in reviews of previous issues, we don’t have any similar series of pulp reprints out there now, and this is a great series.
The big selling point of this issue is a Sax Rohmer thriller. Not one of his Fu Manchu stories, but a similar work, “The Daughter of Huang Chow.” This one stars Inspector “Red” Kerry, and is part of a short series of crime stories set in Chinatown, based on a real person! Rohmer’s Red Kerry series has two novels (Dope and Yellow Shadows), and a couple of short stories. In this one, while investigating murder and opium smuggling, Kerry comes across a woman whose feminine charms render him powerless to resist!
We also get a mixture of different pulp reprints. A couple are used to launch some new collections of stories from Bold Venture. Many overlook the wide range of genres that ran in the pulps, so this issue we get a firefighter story, “A Pinch of Powder” by Karl Detzer (from Short Stories) and a railroad story by Dave Martin (that appeared in Railroad Story magazine). We get a much longer detective story, “Road Show,” about a show business detective by Roger Torrey (from Private Detective Stories).
The one new piece is another Splash Shanahan story by Richard A. Lupoff.
And finally we get an interesting pairing. We get a pulp story by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson: “Treason for Glory,” from War Stories, about an American officer unmasking a German spy in WWI. And with it a non-fiction article, “Searching for a Hero: Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson” by Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson. In this article, we get a great introduction to this overlooked pulp author, later comic book publisher, and how he lived the adventures he wrote.
Another great issue, and the next one is already out. Look forward to getting and reviewing it soon.
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