On Black Friday weekend 2023, Steeger Books put out their next sets of Argosy Library volumes, Series XIV and XV, which brings the total series to 150 volumes.
As always, with each series, we get 10 books of great and sometimes overlooked fiction that appeared in the early pulps. We get some stand-alone works, as well as volumes of various sub-series. This selection seems very heavy on crime and detective stories and series.
Most are taken from the pulps started by Frank A. Munsey, who converted his fiction magazines to pulp paper and reduced their price, making them more profitable. He published the well-known Argosy magazine, which got its start in the late 1800s, and several other popular magazines such as The All-Story and Flynn’s Detective Fiction Weekly.
Series XIV consists of:
- The Blood Trail: The Complete Cases of Morton & McGarvey, Vol. 2, by Donald Barr Chidsey
- Graduation in Red, by B.B. Fowler
- The Yin Shee Dragon: The Complete Cases of Mike & Trixie, Vol. 2, by T.T. Flynn
- The Wild Man of Cape Cod, by Fred MacIsaac
- Three Guns for Tonto: The Complete Tales of Sheriff Henry, Vol. 7, by W.C. Tuttle
- Hell’s Backyard: The Complete Cases of Tug Norton, Vol. 2, by Edward Parrish Ware
- Murderer’s Paradise: The Complete Adventures of Singapore Sammy, Vol. 4, by George F. Worts
- Always Obey Orders: The F.V.W. Mason Foreign Legion Stories Omnibus, Vol. 2, by Francis Van Wyck Mason
- Poisoned Harmony: The Complete Cases of the Scientific Club, Vol. 2, by Ray Cummings
- The Stuffed Men: The Complete Cases of Jigger Masters, Vol. 3, by Anthony M. Rud
The next in the series starting Miami cops Sgt. Wentworth L. McGarvey and his trusty sidekick, Detective Morton, The Blood Trail is the second collection. This series by Donald Barr Chidsey ran over 30 tales in Flynn’s Detective Fiction Weekly in the late 1930s. This one has the next five stories. Living in South Florida, I wonder how accurate to the location these stories are?
In the first Barry Chase novel, Graduation in Red, by Bertram B. Fowler, has our hero working to save the nation from a threat by a group called the Legion of Paladins. This is but one of several such novels written at the time that had our nation face such dangers. This sounds like an interesting tale. There are two more stories with this character. Does he succeed in stopping the group in this story, or does the fight continue in the next two?
Another detective series, The Yin Shee Dragon: The Complete Cases of Mike & Trixie gives us the second collection of these two. T.T. Flynn’s Trixie Meehan and Mike Harris seems the basis for the bickering female/male detective partners. This volume has the next three stories in this series.
From Fred MacIsaac, we get The Wild Man of Cape Cod. After the financial downfall of his family, young Steve Cobb is now living the life of a hermit on Cape Cod, while his family estate is under the control of another. But the location of a valuable block of company bonds leads Cobb into danger as others are after it as well. Will he succeed in overcoming those against him?
The next volume in W.C. Tuttle’s humorous Western series, Three Guns for Tonto: The Complete Tales of Sheriff Henry, Vol. 7, collects two novels in this series from Argosy.
A different detective series is Tug Norton, a former cowboy and now a detective in Kansas City. Hell’s Backyard: The Complete Cases of Tug Norton, Vol. 2, by Edward Parrish Ware, reprints the next three stories from this series of nearly 50.
The reprinting in paperback of George F. Worts’ Singapore Sammy continues with Murderer’s Paradise, which contains the title novel. Sailor Singapore Sammy Shay roamed the South Seas, looking for his father who left with the only copy of his will that left all his father’s riches to him. Worts also created Peter the Brazen and Gillian Hazeltine.
We get another collection of Foreign Legion stories from Francis Van Wyck Mason in Always Obey Orders. We get two stories from 1932 and ’33 from Argosy. If Foreign Legion is an interest, check this one out.
Poisoned Harmony is the second paperback collection Ray Cummings’ Scientific Club series, which will need two more. This is a group of New York socialites that get involved in various scientific adventures.
Anthony Rud’s Jigger Masters is back with The Stuffed Men: The Complete Cases of Jigger Masters, Vol. 3. This one reprints the new two stories in the series, the first of which was published in hardback soon after it appeared in Flynn’s Detective Fiction Weekly. I’m curious to see how this character develops in this new phase of stories.
It’s another mix of volumes. Several of these I am getting or may get. Others I have no interest in. With all the volumes so far, I am sure there is something to interest people.
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