Customer Reviews

Super-Detective Flip Book: Two Complete Novels

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I loved listening to recordings of old radio dramas...the Green Hornet, the Shadow, Superman and the like. The Super Detective flip novel is a return to those old pulp fiction days. This volume contains two complete stories written in the late 1930's and early 1940's. Our hero, Jim Anthony is a detective with unusual mental and physical abilities. Readers might find the dialog dated and definitely nonPC, but the stories are quick, full of action and fun to read. They are staged during a time when Europe was in the beginnings of the next world war and menacing national powers actually threaten the US. Fans of the old-style detective magazines will enjoy this. Thanks to the reissue and the brief introduction about the authors of Jim Savage and the pulp fiction era this may also attract new fans.

"As a manhunter Jim Anthony had no equals; his fame as an amateur scientific criminologist was world-wide. Detection was his hobby, his avocation; countless were the mysteries he had solved, the murderers he had brought to justice after the police themselves had failed. In consequence, the mere mention of his name was enough to strike terror into the heart of any transgressor." -- from Murder's Migrants (one of the two novels in Super-Detective Flip Book)

Pulp fiction seems constantly to be on the comeback. From a publisher entirely devoted to it, like Hard Case Crime, to modern-novel imitations like The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril, even to weblogs trumpeting its merits, like the "Pulp O' the Day" feature on I Was a Bronze Age Boy, it seems we just can't get enough of those seemingly undefeatable heroes like The Shadow and Doc Savage, and the hardboiled private eyes that followed in their footsteps after World War II.

During his tenure as star of his own magazine, Super-Detective, millionaire Jim Anthony was both a superhero and a detective. For 10 novels (always written under the house name "John Grange" -- much like The Shadow's author, "Maxwell Grant"), Anthony fought "super-villains" in high adventure tales of science-fiction. Then, for whatever reason (not all that many world-dictator wannabes, I imagine), Jim Anthony became a more traditional shamus against foes with more earthbound ambitions.

Both of these phases are considered by aficionados to be of equal quality, and the Super-Detective Flip Book contains a "novel" (really "novella," as neither exceeds 100 pages) from each period, printed back-to-back and head-to-tail like the old Ace Double format. (Only, unlike the mass-market size that Ace used and that Hard Case Crime recently revived with its reissue of two early Robert Bloch books -- Shooting Star and Spiderweb -- Off-Trail Publications and Reverse Karma Press have published these books in trade paperback.)

First up chronologically is November 1940's Legion of Robots, the second of a trilogy of novels (widely presumed to be the work of pulp sci-fi author Victor Rousseau, though this is still only speculation) featuring Jim Anthony's struggle with Rado Ruric. Don't worry that two-thirds of the story is missing, however: the other two have been reprinted separately since their debut and (at least according to the introduction by John McMahan), Legion of Robots is considered to be better than its brothers (Dealer in Death and Madame Murder).

Turn the book over to find not-so-"super" detective Jim Anthony in March 1943's Murder's Migrants, one of around a dozen Anthony tales written by pulpsmiths Robert Leslie Bellem and Willis Todhunter Ballard (still under the "John Grange" pseudonym). During this era, Anthony's adventures became less kid-friendly (mostly due to his sidekick's eye for the ladies), because comics had taken away much of that audience and the publisher decided to cater to the older readers who had remained.

While Anthony was originally created as an amalgam of other heroes of the time, like Doc Savage, Superman (just check out the "Super" lettering on the cover), and possibly even Tarzan, he has his own admirable qualities -- and a "legion" of fans to support him. But neither of the stories in the Super-Detective Flip Book is what I would call "good." They both have the particular pulp charm of stories that were written in a hurry, but Murder's Migrants in particular is painfully overwritten in spots. (Given its 60-page length, this is rather surprising.)

Before 10 pages have passed, Bellem (who would eventually focus his skills on television scripts) and Ballard (who would stick to novels but switch primarily to Westerns as "Todhunter Ballard," even serving as vice president of the Western Writers of America for a time), have brought out half a dozen of Anthony's superhuman powers (some from his Comanche mother, another from a Hindu yogi) before he has even met the villain. And the finale more closely matches that of the Firesign Theater's detective parody Nick Danger, Third Eye than any other real detective novel. And in case we didn't get the point, there's that passage I quoted at the beginning of this review, which I can only refer to as a sales pitch. (No wonder author Bill Pronzini devoted an entire chapter to the duo in his book an awful crime writing, Gun in Cheek.)

Super-Detective Flip Book is a terrific time capsule of a time when pulp was king, and "escapism" was the name of the game. I'm not sure that it's going to gain the style many new fans; the quality of writing is simply too pedestrian to make a new reader hungry for more. But the pulp fan who needs something besides the same old reprints that everyone else has already done will find it a welcome discovery indeed.

The stories in this book, originally written in the early 1940s at the height of the pulp era, will take you back to a time before television was a mass medium. As a fan of Doc Savage, also a product of the pulp era, I am familiar with the storylines and style of writing. The (super)hero of these stories is a man named Jim Anthony, more powerful than the average guy, yet not quite as super as Doc Savage. However, you can clearly see the marks of the light cloning, down to the sidekicks, super criminals and the "fortress of solitude."
The first story, "Legion of Robots", has a super criminal named Rado Ruric who is in league with evil foreign powers. Ruric develops a serum that makes people very powerful and he has a mechanical sea serpent that creates havoc in the ocean around the tropical nation of San Rosario. As a native Iowan, I chuckled when reading that one of the female characters is from "Tall Corn, Iowa", such a phrase is truly straight from the pulps.
The second story "Murder's Migrants" involves a ring of German spies and saboteurs that mislead workers by luring them to new jobs and then dumping them in the middle of the desert. By misusing the Anthony name, they hope to sow discord between labor and management, causing strikes and a reduction in the level of war production.
If you are not familiar with the style of the pulp detective story, then the dialog and storyline may turn you off, these are stories that have to be read with that understanding full in the forefront. In "Murder's Migrants" beautiful women are objects to be seduced and there is a significant amount of drinking. To the modern reader, the relentless pursuit of the "beautiful dames" will come across as absurd as it is ham-handed and interferes with the search for the culprits.
I very much enjoyed both stories, not because they necessarily are of high quality, but that they are very much a history lesson. They demonstrate a style of writing that was once popular, but quickly faded away when new forms of entertainment arose. The stories also demonstrate how the struggle against the Axis powers in World War II was total war, even to the point where it was waged in the lowest levels of fiction.

This book contains two stories from the age of "pulp" magazines, which lasted approximately from the late 19th century through the 1950's. Pulp magazines often contained stories considered lurid by the standards of the era. The cover art was also mildly titillating.

The hero of our two stories is Jim Anthony, who bears a striking resemblance to Doc Savage, an even more popular hero of the pulp age. Anthony is wealthy, brilliant and extremely physically fit, with physical capabilities verging on superhuman, though not quite. There are assorted and sundry other characters, i.e. sidekicks, helping Jim in his endeavors.

The first story is "Legion of Robots" that is from the era when Jim Anthony's stories had science fiction elements in them. This story was the second Jim Anthony story, published around 01 November 1940. Anthony's principal foe in the first three magazines was Rado Ruric, a villain with capabilities near Anthony's, which made Ruric just short of a super-villain.

In "Legion of Robots," Ruric has escaped from prison after Anthony had captured Ruric in the first story in the Anthony series. Ruric had two goals. His first goal was to sabotage America, remembering that this story published when the United States was supporting Great Britain even though the United States had not declared war against any of the Axis powers. Ruric's second goal was to get revenge on his nemesis Jim Anthony.

Ruric obtained certain chemicals from a fictional Central American nation that enables him to control men and to give them great strength, thus the name "Legion of Robots." Ruric has also built a serpent-like submarine that can travel on land, spouting chemicals to attack aircraft and people.

Jim Anthony has his hands full as he learns of secrets that threaten his organization and ability to thwart the enemy's of America. Yet, as true American heroes must, we know that Jim Anthony will ultimately prevail, even if it takes a while to figure out how he will prevail.

The second story is "Murder's Migrants" from Anthony's era as a "hard-boiled" detective. This story published 01 March 1943 as the Second World War raged. Once again, Anthony is fighting people intent on sabotaging the American war effort.

Anthony learns of a plot to damage the war effort as he is having dinner. A man who thought Anthony's organization duped him into spending all his money on a bogus trip to California for a non-existent job is preparing to shoot Anthony when someone shoots him.

Anthony begins to investigate and learns that someone has been using his name illegally. Anthony's investigation incurs the wrath of a local police detective who is often annoyed at Anthony's superior investigative abilities. Anthony must overcome all these obstacles to determine who and why people are paying all the money they have to men in the belief they are going to work war jobs in the Southwest, only to be dumped in the desert. What purpose could these men have? How could these actions harm Anthony and his companies? Read on to the exciting conclusion!

These two stories are amazingly entertaining. Given that both stories are from long ago, the style is somewhat archaic and sometimes amusing. The science is often suspect, particularly in "Legion of Robots." Many of the devices described in this story are impossible, which throws many of the elements into either fantastic fiction or science fiction. If you ignore the impossible or implausible aspects, the story is interesting and exciting. I remember enjoying "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow," which is a pulp fiction film and it is the closest contemporary example I am able to provide to this book. If you enjoyed "Sky Captain" or just enjoy any story where you need to look past what you know to be able to enjoy the story, then these two stories are a lot of fun.

One thing I noticed in both stories is occasional references to bosoms and creamy thighs - and sometimes - other creamy things. I assume that these references are the "lurid" parts of these stories. By today's standards, these references sometimes verge on hilarious and cliché.

I also thought the writing in "Legion of Robots" seemed more archaic than the writing in "Murder's Migrants." I noticed that the author tended to phrase things in a way that seemed to pre-date the 1940's. The author also seemed to rely heavily on the use of exclamation marks. Though I was more amused in "Legion of Robots," I thought "Murder's Migrants" was more interesting and better written.

I enjoyed both these stories from another era and I hope to be able to read more stories like these in the future. Fans of books, pulp detective stories, pulp science fiction, or Doc Savage will likely find these stories as entertaining and amusing as I did.

Enjoy!

My thanks to the author's representative for providing me with a review copy.

It's hard to beat a two for one special. "Super Detective: An Off-Trail Flip Book" is a combination of two old school pulp novels by John Grange. 'Murder's Migrants' and 'Legion of Robots' follow so-called 'Super Detective' Jim Anthony as he faces all sorts of antagonists in good old-fashioned, fast-paced and fun pieces of writing. "Super Detective: An Off-Trail Flip Book" is a top pick for anyone seeking a bit of nostalgia for older pulpy novels and for community library mystery collections.