{"id":22964,"date":"2026-09-07T10:00:51","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T14:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/?p=22964"},"modified":"2026-05-21T14:27:50","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T18:27:50","slug":"ed-race-the-masked-marksman-vol-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/2026\/09\/07\/ed-race-the-masked-marksman-vol-5\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Ed Race: The Masked Marksman,’ Vol. 5"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently picked up the fifth collection of the Ed Race<\/a><\/strong> series, which ran in the back of The Spider<\/a><\/em> pulp from Popular Publications<\/a>. Also known as The Masked Marksman<\/strong>, this series ran for 55 stories from 1934 to 1943.<\/p>\n

\"Ed<\/a>Ed Race, The Masked Marksman<\/em>, Vol. 5, subtitled “Curtain Call for the Corpse,” by Steeger Books<\/a> under its Popular Publications imprint, reprints the next six stories. I think we’ll need about three more volumes. The cover on this one, like the others, is AI-generated, and I think it is an improvement over the earlier ones, as this one gives a better impression of a painted cover.<\/p>\n

Emile Tepperman<\/a><\/strong> wrote these stories. He also worked on other pulp heroes like Operator #5<\/a><\/strong>, The Phantom Detective<\/a><\/strong>, The Spider<\/a>, and Secret Agent X<\/a><\/strong>, as well as the Suicide Squad<\/a><\/strong> of the FBI. Tepperman may be best known for doing the Purple Invasion<\/a> series in Operator #5.<\/p>\n

Most pulp-hero fans may not be aware that pulp magazines always ran multiple stories, even in the character pulps. This means that The Shadow<\/a><\/em>, Doc Savage<\/a><\/em>, The Spider<\/em>, et al, ran other stories in addition to the lead novel of the hero. Often, these included other series characters. I’ve posted on them, and I hope more of these backup series can be reprinted.<\/p>\n

So who is Ed Race? Well, we learn that he’s a traveling vaudeville performer, doing a routine as a gun juggler known as the Masked Marksman, using six .45-caliber revolvers. But he has multiple state P.I. licenses (at least a dozen), so when he’s bored, he solves crimes. Traveling around the country means he can deal with crimes wherever he is.<\/p>\n

As each story is pretty short, there are no other continuing characters, though some characters make return appearances. In the past, we’ve had Leon Partages<\/strong>, who runs the chain of theaters that Ed appears in, and a hotel detective, Halloran<\/strong>, but neither shows up in any of these stories. Last volume, we got a new character in Inspector MacSpain<\/strong> in several stories set in New York. He returns in most of these stories as they are all set in New York.<\/p>\n

Each story is short, about 20 pages. So while there is a mystery behind what is happening, matters need to be wrapped up quickly. Sometimes it’s because Ed needs to get to a performance or head out to another city. So the mystery is solved not by careful thought or gathering clues but by furious action and gunplay. There is almost always a girl involved. And as Race is traveling around the Partages theater chain, the stories can appear in New York or some unknown town.<\/p>\n

In “Curtain Call for the Corpse,” Ed’s best friend has escaped from prison. He was serving a long term for shooting another, a local gangster, who married the girl he loved. But Ed gets a message to meet someone, and gets pulled into another mystery. Can he help his friend and show that he admitted to a crime he didn’t commit and help get him out of this mess?<\/p>\n

In “A Cue for the Corpse,” Ed is in his room shaving before he has to go on stage at 1 a.m., when he encounters a young woman dragging a corpse down the hall at his hotel. He helps her out and gets pulled into a scheme to frame her brother, and has to save her as well. Can he do it all before his curtain call?<\/p>\n

In “Headliner From Hell,” Ed gets pulled into a mystery when, after running into a fake blind beggar, he is given a $40,000 payout from a strange woman. Soon, others are after the money, and he is trying to figure out what is going on with murder, extortion, and more.<\/p>\n

In “Death’s Booking Agent,” a young woman drops blood-stained money in his pocket and is chased by a pair of dirty cops. Ed gets involved, and will he be able to expose the crime, hopefully put an end to their career, and save the girl?<\/p>\n

We find Ed finishing up his stage act in “Bank-Night for Corpses,” when a young boy comes running up to him. He knows Ed and is the orphan of a fellow performer. His aunt sent him to get Ed to help after his twin sisters were kidnapped. Can Ed unravel this whole thing and save the lives of people?<\/p>\n

And finally, in “Murder’s One-Man Show,” Ed helps a cop stop an art thief, but when the young cop is gunned down by the thieves, he has to unravel the case and clear his name. With the help of the cop’s young wife.<\/p>\n

This is a fun series of short action tales. It is interesting to see how Tepperman is able to mix things up in the stories so they don’t get repetitive. This time, all the stories are set in New York, often dealing with someone in charge of some large criminal operation. We seem to be running out of these sorts after these stories.<\/p>\n

I look forward to future volumes in the series. Will we see more of Inspector MacSpain? I’m surprised we’ve had him appear so often, as that’s been rare in this series so far for secondary characters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently picked up the fifth collection of the Ed Race series, which ran in the back of The Spider pulp from Popular Publications. Also known as The Masked Marksman, this series ran for 55 stories from 1934 to 1943. Ed Race, The Masked Marksman, Vol. 5, subtitled “Curtain Call for the Corpse,” by Steeger […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":23109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_has_post_settings":{"highlight_sharing":"default","image_sharing":"default","headline_sharing":"default"},"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Pulp Super-Fan looks at 'Ed Race: The Masked Marksman,' Vol. 5.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[1,135,14],"tags":[1671,1903,939,229],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-22964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pulps","category-reprints","category-review","tag-ed-race","tag-emile-tepperman","tag-steeger-books","tag-the-spider"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3eLo8-5Yo","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2026\/04\/ed-race-vol-5-featured.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22964"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23131,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22964\/revisions\/23131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22964"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=22964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}