When I reviewed the first Alchemy Book of Pulp Heroes, one of the few stories that I felt was pulpish was the one about Nick Nightmare, a hard-boiled detective who dealt with occult matters. Or as author Adrian Cole put it, a hard-boiled detective vs. the Cthulhu Mythos.
I was hoping there would be more, and I wasn’t wrong. Cole has been writing more, and put out a collection of the earliest stories in 2019: Nick Nightmare #1: Nick Nightmare Investigates through Pulp Hero Press. And there is now a second volume, Nick Nightmare #2: Nightmare Cocktails, and another (Nightmare Creatures) is promised soon.
The character actually first appeared in the novel Night of the Heroes, but was apparently a minor character.
This first volume, which actually reprints the original collection from Alchemy Press, has nine stories (plus an “appendix”), five of which are reprints from other collections. One of the Nick Nightmare stories has him team up with Mike Chinn‘s Damian Paladin, which I have posted about. There is a theme with these stories of horror from the seas, so think Deep Ones, Dagon, etc. from H.P. Lovecraft.
Now, Nick we learn is actually Nick Stone, but is clearly nicknamed “Nightmare.” He operates from an office that declares him “Private Investigator, Public Fist.” He’s been able to pick up a few items and tricks, but has no powers or special abilities. His stories aren’t pure pulp. It’s mainly a mixture of hard-boiled and Lovecraftian horror, but thanks to the idea of a multiverse, we can get superheroes as well. It’s not clear when the stories are set, but I suspect sometime in the 1950s or so (there are Uzis, but no PCs). In addition to Nick, there are a few other characters who reoccur in the series, including the local police chief.
The first story has Nick trying to rescue a jazz musician who has gotten involved with a Dagon cult, at great risk for himself. He is helped by another jazz musician with knowledge of the occult, and an outcome is Nick finds himself in possession of some mystic stones that will help in the future (along with some info).
Next, he gets pulled in a case to stop someone from overseas who is heading to Innsmouth. One group wants him dead, and the FBI wants him alive for questioning. And Nick is in the middle, charged with killing him. Who is this man, why does everyone want to either stop or kill him, and will Nick succeed?
We then get Nick’s first solo story that I read in the Alchemy collection. Someone new in town killed a friend of Nick’s, and he looks into it. Thankfully the items he obtained in the first story are a help here in stopping the “Vogue Prince.”
Another story inspired by Innsmouth has Nick helping a fisherman, Sharkbait Bill, who is being menaced by such folk.
Nick’s favorite author is Bart Kraggs, who writes pulp detective stories about Ned Killigan. And Nick knows him, so Bart pulls him into helping out another author who writes Lovecraftian stories. But I guess he got too close to his work, as he’s killed and there are things after his notebook.
A longer story has Nick deal with a menace who is killing major members of the five crime families in his unnamed town, and making a sort of “Frankenstein’s monster” out of the parts, in a bid to take over — backed by a deep water menace. Nick is aided by a strange character who drives a bus that can cross between realities, Montifellini, who brings in two others to help.
The teamup with Paladin is a bit bizarre, as the two characters are in different time eras and, we learn, in different realities (multiverse, remember?). Paladin is a fictional character in Nick’s world. Nick is recruited to help rescue Paladin’s assistant, who has been kidnapped by a Nazi madman and taken to yet another reality called “Pulpworld” and taken to Dunnmouth (clearly a combo of two cities from Lovecraft. Not good). Nick is again aided by Montifellini.
Nick is engaged by a rich businesswoman to find her missing brother, named Ariadne Carnadine. He may have gotten involved with the wrong things. She actually has some secret talents; one is she is some kind of ninja warrior. Together they go after her brother, who seems to have used a gateway to another world and is involved in some kind of Dagon cult, who are trying to get ahold of a dangerous mystical weapon: the Chaos Blade.
A crimelord enemy of Nick becomes something else and a threat to Nick. Ariadne again appears, and they try to put an end to him. In an interesting part, Nick travels to an alternate reality and mets his hero, Ned Killigan, who is real in this reality and where Nick is a fictional character.
Finally, we get an appendix, a story about the Chaos Blade which doesn’t involve Nick.
Overall, I found the character and stories are a good read. I look forward to getting the followup collections. The element of parallel realities would even allow for other teamups, which opens up some interesting possibilities. I assume we’ll see a return of several of the secondary characters.
