Finally, after too long, we get the next in the George Chance: The Ghost Archives series from Steeger Books, which reprints the Ghost/Green Ghost series from Thrilling, written by G.T. Fleming-Roberts.
The character had 14 original stories from 1940-44. He first starred in his own pulp magazine in 1940, titled The Ghost-Super Detective, for three issues. It was renamed to The Ghost Detective for one issue, then The Green Ghost Detective for three issues.
He then moved to Thrilling Mystery, where he was again known as just “The Ghost” for six stories. A final story appeared in Thrilling Detective, where he was renamed “George Hazzard,” and all mention of being The Green Ghost was dropped, which was a common fate for many of Thrilling’s later pulp heroes.
The Green Ghost, which is what most pulp fans call him, was really magician George Chance. Similar to some other Thrilling heroes, Chance gets involved helping the police with tough cases, putting to use his skills as a magician, and finds he enjoys it. So he’s more a semi-official vigilante than one who operates totally outside the law.
Chance disguises himself as the mysterious “Green Ghost,” using makeup to give him a ghoulish appearance. He is aided by several others. There is his assistant, Glenn Saunders, who looks just like him. This is useful to throw people off from thinking Chance is The Ghost. There is his love interest, Merry White, who often gets in trouble. Tiny Tim Terry is a midget and friend of George’s, and Joe Harper is another member of his staff who helps out. There is also the Police Commissioner Standish, who knows who The Ghost really is, along with the medical examiner, Robert Demarest.
Altus Press’ first volume reprints the first two stories, and this second volume reprints the next two stories.
In these two stories, we get mysterious murder mysteries, all told in the first person by George Chance, such that the villain isn’t revealed until the end.
In Murder Makes a Ghost, a group of men is gathered at the home of one of them. He is nervous due to strange voices and is strangely killed. After his body is moved to another room, he apparently gets up and escapes. What is going on? Looking into it, The Ghost seems to find some strange men around a nearby house, and he thinks they are responsible. Matters get more confusing, as it appears we have several groups of criminals, including a group led by a man in a strange mask. Making things worse, we get some strange killings where people are getting electrocuted like in an execution, but there seems to be no source of electricity. And we learn that several men are actually Greek. Does this mean anything? We don’t get the full explanation until the end, when the murderer behind it all is revealed.
In The Case of the Laughing Corpse, a man disliked by many gets killed when the car he is driving is struck by a train. Then six people, all of whom hated him for various reasons, are named in his will and receive strange brass keys. Then he strangely calls some of them, and The Ghost looks into things and finds him in his house, dead, with a book of poetry. So clearly he didn’t die in the train crash, but what is happening? And The Ghost finds a young man in the house, but he’s clearly not the killer. Someone is now going after the people with keys, causing them to die in apparent suicide. Again, it’s not until the end that we learn who the killer is and what is actually going on.
These are all complex and interesting cases. All of the Ghost’s associates are able to be useful in the stories. We have one more long story before we get short stories, so I don’t know how many we will get in the next volumes or how the stories will be when shorter, as usually secondary characters get cut. But I found this character more interesting than some of the other Thrilling characters.
Add Comment