An interesting New Pulp hero is Midnight Guardian, created by John C. Bruening. There are three novels so far, with a fourth announced at PulpFest 2025.
Set in the 1930s, this is a good series. All the books are published by Flinch! Books with covers by Thomas Gianni or Douglas Klauba. This series is set in Union City, located in the Midwest, which is on a river somewhere south of Canada. We don’t get more details than that, but it’s been around a couple of hundred years or so.
The series so far is:
- Hour of Darkness (2016)
- Annihilation Machine (2019)
- God and Sinners (2022)
- March of the Giants (TBP 2025)
Hour of Darkness starts with a prologue in 1922. A group of gangsters is attacking the Justice Center in an attempt to get evidence on their boss, but are stopped by a brave cop who gives his life defeating them. The head of the gang, Nick Diamond, better known as Nicky Dynamite, is sent away.
The main story starts in 1936. Our main character is Jack Hunter, the assistant DA of the city. His cousin, Buzz, who runs an electronics repair shop, is tinkering on a strange helmet that can enhance the human mind. It also has infrared goggles.
Meanwhile, it seems that Nick Diamond has been paroled and has moved back to Union City, though few are aware of this. He is slowly rebuilding his criminal network. He is muscling in on several illegal gambling dens and has made a deal with the main tong leader in Chinatown to import some stuff for him. And we get to see how vicious Diamond is when he deals with one of his own men. When the police make some raids on his operations, he has set up explosives and enjoys the effect of this.
When Diamond sends some of his thugs to kidnap Buzz and try to threaten Jack, Jack instead takes the helmet and uses it to rescue Buzz. He also winds up grabbing a ledger with all of Diamond’s illicit activities in it. So can the police use it to stop him?
But things aren’t going as some would like. Police raids fail, and they have problems getting warrants. Is there a leak? And Diamond is getting more erratic. He is plotting a “big show.” Before that, he sends his men to grab the ledger from the police, grabbing a couple of other people, including Betty Carlyle, the lead secretary for the DA’s office. And a possible love interest for Jack?
The Annihilation Machine is set two years later in 1938. This is kind of interesting, as instead of continuing to operate as the “Midnight Guardian,” Jack has set that aside to do his job as assistant DA. The need for the Midnight Guardian has passed. Or has it?
As we get closer to WWII, there is a new rising threat. Someone is making threats on the city, using some new weapon to destroy buildings, and putting lives at risk. Dr. Bergmann, a scientist who escaped from Nazi Germany, is somehow connected. There is a mad scientist named Von Geist, but known only as der Sensenmann. He is aided by a mysterious man known only as der Messer, or The Knife. And a local bundist group called the Order of the Eagle, as well.
As the threat ramps up, with buildings destroyed, a U.S. Senator is attacked and almost killed. Dr. Bergmann is kidnapped. Can The Midnight Guardian find where the machine is and stop it before more lives are lost?
In the end, we learn that a group of good Samaritans, calling themselves The Midnight League, has arisen. Will they help or hinder the Guardian going forward? And Lt. Stiles is not only trying to figure out who they are, but also who the Guardian is. Will he succeed?
I’ll be covering the next two novels, God and Sinners and March of the Giants, once the fourth one comes out. Overall, this is an interesting series when the hero of the story very reluctantly makes use of his masked identity and has to worry about being exposed. I’m not sure where this series is going, but so far it’s been pretty good.
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