Customer Reviews

The Shadow: "The Golden Vulture" and "Crime, Insured"

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Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?
The Shadow Knows!

The Shadow is a classic hero from the 1930's and 40's. He hasn't been seen since the 1994 film.

Well, now The Shadow is Back! in all his dark and mysterious glory! This book contains two full Shadow Novels from the original 1930's pulps.

The first novel, "Crime, Insured", introduces experienced and new Shadow fans to his brand of crime fighting, and also introduces quite a few of the people that are in his network of agents. The Shadow's agents are people who he has saved at some time in the past and they agreed to help him when he asked for it. The agents in this story are some of his most common and frequently used people. The story basically revolves around an insurance agency who thought of a new insurance scheme, where they insure the criminal for the crime they plan to commit! This is a great introduction to the shadow, and is full of action that shows how the Shadow operates. How the story wraps up adds a great surprise twist at the end!

The second story, "The Golden Vulture", was written by Lester Dent, and then edited by Walter Gibson. This story mixes the technology tricks that Doc Savage fans will recognize as Lester Dent's forte with the mysterious methods of The Shadow. This was the story that won Lester Dent the contract to write Doc Savage! A Great Shadow Story by two great authors!

If you like fast-driving action, mystery and heroic action, you'll love this book. If you are a fan of the Dark Knight, come see one of his first inspirations!

Make sure you have time because when you start this book you will not stop until finished. The plots are viable today. I love the informative features regarding the writers.

The Shadow is back after a long absence from book shelves, movies and television. The Shadow has been out of print since the early 1970's, when Pyramid books published 23 paperback reprints of the classic pulps, with beautiful Jim Steranko covers.
Now we have a fine series of reprints, with two novels for the price of one, reprinted with the original covers and interior illustrations. If you have never read a novel of the Shadow, then "Crime, Insured!" is a great introduction to the series. It is among the most fast paced and well written of the series which consisted of about 325 novels, mostly written by Walter Gibson, under the pen name Maxwell Grant.
For those who only know the Shadow from the old radio series, or the mediocre 1994 Alec Baldwin film, then prepare to meet the true Shadow. No mental powers which "cloud mens minds" here, just detective skills, muscle, and twin automatics. You'll also be intoduced to one of the most mysterious characters in popular fiction bar none.
Pulp fiction at its best. Buy it and read it. You won't regret it!

Ever since I first heard re-runs of The Shadow on a local radio station, I've been hooked. Actually getting to read the adventures just pushes it one step higher. 'Crime Insured' dragged me right in, with 'The Golden Vulture' keeping me riveted.

This is the first in the latest re-releases, and it is definitely worth it. But a warning may need to be put on the cover. I got so wrapped up in reading that I stayed up much later than I should have.

It's absolutely fantastic that The Shadow has returned! What really makes these reprints worth getting (aside from the terrific action and adventure of course!) is the fact that they capture not only the original stories but the art that accompanied them as well. The tales are still very enaging some 60 years later.

The only bad things I have to say about the series is that I wish they had started reprinting the stories in the order the were originally released and that I think I'm going to need a new bookshelf for this series!

This new series of reprints are an excellent introduction to the pulp novels of the Master of Darkness. With two novels each and extra historical material they can't be beat. The Golden Vulture is a personal favorite because of the blending of two fo the best ever hero pulp authors, Lester Dent and Walter B. Gibson. Crime, Insured, is a fast-paced yarn considered to be one of the best Shadow novels.

Nostalgia Ventures and Anthony Tollin have teamed up to do a comprehensive reprint of several Street & Smith pulp heroes. At present, they are doing double reprints of The Shadow and Doc Savage. Shortly, they will start new series reprinting The Avenger and The Whisperer. All have complete pulp texts (no edits or removals, like past reprints), tho reset so its easier to read, the original illustrations, reprinted covers (one is used as the cover of the book, but both original pulp covers are shown on the back), and several additional articles and additions as space permits.

Hopefully, they can succeed to reprinting all these characters in these new editions, they are all excellent.

With The Shadow having over 325 pulp novels, only a few reprinted, for the most part they are avoiding those that have been reprinted. They do try to pick two that more or less 'go together' in terms of a common theme.

With this book, #1, they kick off their Shadow reprint series with 2 excellent stories. In this volume, we have "Crime Insured" (July 1, 1937) and "The Golden Vulture" (July 15, 1938). The cover of "The Golden Vulture" is used as the cover of this volume, and the original covers of both issues are shown on the back.

"Crime, Insured" is one of the top rated Shadow novels. It was reprinted in S&S Shadow Annual, and voted a top story many times. It pits the Shadow and his agents against a new foe who sells insurance to criminals against the Shadow.

"The Golden Vulture" is a unique story. Its actually a revision of the only Shadow novel written by Lester Dent, creator and author of Doc Savage. As we learn in the extras, Dent was given the task of writting a Shadow novel as a test. He passed, and got the opportunity to create and write Doc Savage. But the story was never used, sitting in a safe. Later, it was given to Gibson to revamp. He had to bring the story up to date with the current take on the Shadow, and it was published. A sort of unusually collaboration of these two authors.

As extras in this issue are:

An intro by series editor Anthony Tollin on the Shadow.

An intro to "The Golden Vulture" by pulp history and Doc expert Will Murray.

A brief bio of both Dent and Gibson.

This is a great read. reminds me of my youth when we only had radio to hesr for smmusement.

I was hooked on this book once I got to the second page. I'd never read pulp fictions prior to this and I fell in love with it. It contains two stories about the Shadow and was great fun. Full of adventure and had some cool characters and story plots. It was like reading a Batman comic from 1931.

what happened to the doc savage kindle books? They were all available for $1.60 and then suddenly disappeared. Does anyone have any idea?