{"id":7286,"date":"2018-04-09T10:00:21","date_gmt":"2018-04-09T14:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/?p=7286"},"modified":"2025-10-10T14:40:32","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T18:40:32","slug":"the-defective-detective-in-the-pulps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/2018\/04\/09\/the-defective-detective-in-the-pulps\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Defective Detective in the Pulps’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"'The<\/a>In my collection are a pair of interesting books published by Bowling Green State University Popular Press (now that’s a topic for a future posting) in 1983 and ’85. They are The Defective Detective in the Pulps<\/em> and More Tales of the Defective Detective in the Pulps<\/em>.<\/p>\n

These collect several pulp detective stories in facsimile format (artwork, ads, and all), and are edited by Gary Hoppenstand<\/strong> and Ray B. Browne<\/strong>, joined by Garyn G. Roberts<\/strong> with the second one.<\/p>\n

The focus of these collections is “defective detectives,” that is detectives with some physical disability: blindness, deafness, lameness, and the like. Both volumes have good introductions that fit these characters into the world of pulp detectives, as well as how the theme has continued into today’s detective fiction. We wind up getting several stories from a handful of characters, and some have since been completely reprinted.<\/p>\n

The first volume kicks off with the first Seekay<\/strong> story by Paul Ernst<\/strong>. I previously posted on Seekay<\/a>, the strange detective Ernst wrote for Popular Publication’s Strange Detective Stories<\/em>. Seekay has no face; what’s left is hidden behind a cellulite mask. Altus Press<\/a> has reprinted all the Seekay stories.<\/p>\n

Peter Quest<\/strong> suffers from glaucoma, and could lose his eyesight at the wrong time. Written by John Kobler<\/strong>, Quest appeared in Dime Mystery Magazine<\/em> for five stories. We get the middle of these. Under his Warren Lucas<\/strong> pseudonym, Kobler created Lin Melchan<\/strong>, who has acute hearing. But Melchan only appeared once, in the story reprinted here, also from Dime Mystery<\/em>. All the rest of these stories from both collections are from Popular’s Dime Mystery<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Next up is Nat Schachner<\/strong>‘s Nicholas Street<\/strong> who suffers from amnesia. He solves others mysteries, but is not able to solve his own. Sadly, it’s another one-off.<\/p>\n

\"'More<\/a>From the prolific\u00a0Arthur Leo Zagat<\/strong>, under his Grendon Alzee<\/strong> pseudonym, we get a bit of a twist as to the “defective detective” idea. To say more will give it away.<\/p>\n

Closing out the volume is Edith<\/strong> and Eljer Jacobson<\/strong>‘s Nat Perry<\/strong>, “The Bleeder,” who is a hemophiliac and could bleed to death from a simple cut. Orphaned at a young age, but taken in by a police detective at 14 after a hit-and-run where the cop donated blood to save him, Perry sets his sights on being one, too. Altus Press has reprinted the whole series of seven stories.<\/p>\n

For the next volume, we will get further characters. First off are three stories of Russell Gray<\/strong> (Bruno Fisher<\/strong>)’s Ben Bryn<\/strong>, who because of childhood paralysis has withered legs but strong arms. He ran nine stories, so maybe Altus might reprint them all someday. Gray (or Fisher) had another defective detective who didn’t make the cut, but seems a forerunner to Ben: Calvin Kane<\/strong>, who dragged a withered leg along the ground like a crab, but had very strong arms. I’m not sure if he had more then one story. Maybe if Altus reprints Ben Bryn, Kane can be included.<\/p>\n

We get two more Peter Quest and two more Bleeder stories.<\/p>\n

And finally a story with Dan Holden<\/strong>, by Leon Byrne<\/strong>. Holden’s disability is the strangest. Each death is presaged by an eerie sound that causes him to go deaf! We get the first of two stories of this character.<\/p>\n

These aren’t the only such characters, as the intro mentions a few others. But these are nice collections and still available from the the Popular Press<\/a> (now owned by the University of Wisconsin, which is still publishing new works under the name). As I noted, a couple of these characters have been completely collected, and maybe others can as well, though one of the values of these collections are the great introductions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my collection are a pair of interesting books published by Bowling Green State University Popular Press (now that’s a topic for a future posting) in 1983 and ’85. They are The Defective Detective in the Pulps and More Tales of the Defective Detective in the Pulps. These collect several pulp detective stories in facsimile […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":7434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_has_post_settings":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Pulp Super-Fan looks at 'The Defective Detective in the Pulps' #pulpmags","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":[135,14],"tags":[493,188,905,494,492],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-7286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reprints","category-review","tag-defective-detective","tag-detective-pulps","tag-gary-hoppenstand","tag-garyn-g-roberts","tag-popular-press"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2018\/04\/defective-detective-in-the-pulps.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3eLo8-1Tw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7286","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=7286"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21562,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7286\/revisions\/21562"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7286"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=7286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}