A Case of Killer Drugs and Cold-blooded Murder on the Midway
April 18, 2011
Fans of purple pulp prose will welcome this Hubbard novella, which first appeared in the November 1934 issue of Popular Detective magazine. The lurid opening sentence sets the tone: "Rising to a crescendo of stark horror, a scream of death hacked through the gaiety of the night." Bob Clark, carnival detective for Shreve's Mammoth Carnival but actually a covert operative for the U.S. Treasury Department, suspects someone is using the carnival as a cover for dope-trafficking. While Clark's cover is ostensibly solid, he has still been the subject of multiple attempts on his life. Against this background, the investigator must track four cannibals who escaped from their restraints and who are the logical people responsible for the decapitation murder of their barker. The climax even features a showdown in a house of mirrors. A short story, "The Death Flyer," about violence onboard a train, helps fill up this slim volume.
May 15, 2011
Working undercover at a carnival to bust a suspected drug ring, U.S. narcotics agent Bob Clark stumbles onto a series of headless corpses. All signs point to the carnival's biggest draw, four "ferocious African headhunters" imported and manacled for display to scare American audiences, but Clark chases another theory. Originally published in the November 1934 issue of Popular Detective, this horror/mystery tale roars to life through the kaleidoscopic auditory fabric of its carnival setting. R.F. Daley provides the overall narration as well as voices a minor character; Jim Meskimen, Ryan Cota, Tait Ruppert, Lori Jablons, and Nick Baybak render the remaining 14. Though the plot kicks off right away, the production increasingly gains traction as more of the cast chime in to layer the tale. Recommended. [Includes the ghost story "The Death Flyer" (1936).--Ed.]
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