For most pulp fans, Lester Dent (1908-59) is best known for Doc Savage, and maybe his several “gadget heroes.” His other pulp works are too often overlooked.
I’ve posted on some of them here, most recently his works that appeared in Argosy. Now we’ll look at the works he got published in Black Mask: his Oscar Sail stories, which appeared around the same time. This is due to Steeger Books putting out a collection of them along with some related works, Luck: The Complete Black Mask Cases of Oscar Sail, in their Black Mask Library.
As Black Mask hit its 100th anniversary in 2021, I’ve done a post on them. So check that out. For Dent, he saw this as a way to step up to getting into the “slicks,” thus in 1936 he wrote two stories for Black Mask, which was just before he cracked Argosy.
These two starred Oscar Sail, who is a boat-dwelling hard-boiled detective set in Miami. Clearly, Dent made use of his experiences treasure hunting in the Caribbean that brought him to Miami for several years. And one might argue Sail might have been an inspiration for John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee and similar characters. As someone from Florida, I was interested in seeing how accurate it was.
Oscar Sail is a tall man who prefers wearing dark or black polos, jeans, and shoes. We are not told exactly how tall he is, but almost everyone he runs into remarks on this. His boat, Sail, is painted black, with black sails and covers, and is similar to Dent’s Albatross, being a Chesapeake “bugeye,” which is a type a sailing ship with two masts.
“Sail,” appeared in the October 1936 issue, and “Angelfish” followed in December 1936 and was cover featured. That cover is used for this collection. I have been wanting to read these two, but while they have been reprinted several times, never together.
We kick off with an intro by Will Murray who tells us a little of Dent’s treasure hunting and his use of the Albatross, with a few pictures of it. We learn how Dent came to write these two works, which was bittersweet. He really wanted to get into Black Mask, and it was harder than he expected, having to re-write “Sail.” After getting it sold, he did the second, and things looked up. But sadly, the longtime editor of Black Mask, Joseph “Cap” Shaw, left before that second story saw print due to issues with the publisher. This killed, in Dent’s mind, of any further work with Black Mask.
“Sail” starts us in the middle of the action. We meet Sail near his boat cutting up a barracuda at night. Why is he doing this? A cop shows up looking for someone who had yelled, but Sail sends him off. Soon we have Sail sneak into his boat, strip and put on swim trunks and go diving for something, which he finds but hides. When he sneaks back into his boat, he finds a girl there who claims they got married when Sail was drunk. He soon deals with her, but must contend with her brother hiding in a closet. Why are they there, and what is this all about? When he gets rid of them, he follows them but loses them. But when he comes back there are two cops in his boat, with another. This mystery seems to get deeper, and we don’t even know what’s going on!
It will be about two-thirds through the story before we start getting clued in on what is going on, and how Sail and the other players fit in.
Oscar Sail is an interesting character. He gets into a lot of scraps and takes a beating and doesn’t just shrug it off. He gets taken to the hospital at the end. But others have it worse. I want to see more of him.
We get that in the second story, “Angelfish.” Again we are dropped into the middle of the action, and this time Sail himself doesn’t fully understand things. We will learn as he does. Also, we are getting reports that Miami is about to get hit by a hurricane!
A woman, Nan Moberly who is on the cover in a scene later in the story, asked him to setup a fake robbery, where she is apparently shot and a bag she has handcuffed to her is cut open and the items taken. This must be witnessed by a certain pair. Sail does this, and makes off, getting shot at for his troubles. Leaving, he finds a cab driven by a peg-leg man named John Silver (?!?). When he calls Nan, she seems coy, not telling him why this was done and says that she’ll send someone for the package. But when this person shows up, Sail doesn’t trust him, tying him up, and heads to see Nan himself. Silver has for some reason has attached himself to Sail.
Heading to Nan’s hotel room to find out what’s going on. He tries to get answers, but is suspicious. Especially when he find her tied up in bed, and a dead body under it. Sail uses a gun with a couple of tear-gas cartridges on the bathroom, but it’s empty. But he is waylaid by a couple of thugs who take Nan and him prisoner to a boat house. Sail escapes, taking out one of the thugs.
Heading to his boat with the thug, he finds John Silver tied up, and the man he had tied up gone. From John, he now learns where they are taking Nan, and finally what this is all about and how John fits in. Now they head to Angelfish Creek, which explains also the title. It’s a real place, a “creek” or waterway that separates some keys at the south end of Biscayne Bay.
I did enjoy the use of South Florida locations and history. The first story made references to the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 that caused so many deaths, and the destruction of the worker’s camp on Lower Matecumbe Key. Several other locations are noted, such as Angelfish Creek. And a hurricane is part of the action in the second story.
This collection also included some related stories with similar characters and settings. “Jungle Impulse” and “Two Kukulcans” were works Dent wrote later when he again tried to break into the slicks, using characters similar to Sail. But neither sold. So this is their first time in print. “Jungle Impulse” gives us Tom Sail instead. Interestingly, the oil industry is part of the story, same as with “Angelfish.” This is important as Dent had experience due to his time working in the Oklahoma oil fields. I don’t know if Tom Sail is close enough to Oscar Sail to be his replacement. He doesn’t appear to be a sailor, nor a detective. And not sure if the plot of the tale is close to what might have been intended for “Cay.” But it’s a good story, and I have no idea why it didn’t sell.
“Two Kukulcans” has Seaworthly Smith as our nautical hero.
We also get “Luck,” which is an early draft of “Sail,” and manuscript fragments of “Cay,” “Angelfish,” and “Deep.” “Cay” is an unfinished third Sail story, it’s unclear what “Deep” might have been intended to be. It’s interesting reading “Luck” and comparing it to “Sail.” The plot is basically the same, but the details are different.
So at this point I think most of Lester Dent’s pulp work has been reprinted. I wonder if there are more unpublished Dent stories? The only major works missing are the complete Click Rush stories and the short Ed Stone series, as both are owned by Condé Nast. I wish we could get these, but with how Condé Nast is treating their pulp rights, I don’t see it happening. But do check out this volume, as well as others in the Black Mask Library.
