DETECTIVE TALES (DT) proved to be a durable magazine; while it was launched in the middle of the Great Depression, DT outlived the economic downturn. FictionMags elucidates:
"The second most successful of Popular Publications’ detective magazines, Detective Tales ran for 18 years, mainly on a monthly basis, producing a total of 202 issues. Most of the issues offered twelve stories for ten cents, which has occasionally led to it being mis-listed as Twelve Stories Detective Tales. Finally, in 1953, it merged with New Detective to form Fifteen Detective Stories."
AS to the quality of the stories, most of them seem to have been at or above the standards of the prevailing pulps; certainly the ones that we've read so far meet the minimal criteria of being readable and entertaining. Two brief examples, both of the "perfect crime" variety, follow:
(1) "Too Many Alibis."
Edward S. Williams (?-?; FictionMags HERE).
First appearance: Detective Tales, April 1943.
Reprinted in Detective Tales (Canada), October 1943.
Short short short story (5 pages).
Online at pulpmagazines.org (HERE; go to text page 41).
"Harvey Brandt had planned a crime with the meticulous skill of a campaign strategist. He had figured on everything but . . . TOO MANY ALIBIS."
THE next time you turn up the thermostat on a cold winter's night, give a thought to Harvey. He's earned it . . .
Main characters:
~ Harvey Brandt ("Think, you fool!"), The Burtons ("Why don't you come over and have breakfast with Tom"), Old Pop McAtee ("Too bad, he thought, about Pop"), and the McDaniels boy ("The kid will never notice the additional twelve miles on his speedometer").
References and resources:
- "this damned war":
Since it's 1943, everybody reading this story would know immediately it was a reference to the Second World War and probably nod their heads in agreement. (History.com HERE.)
- "classed 4-H, so far, by the Draft Board":
According to the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, that would be Brandt's draft status: "IV-H - Deferred, age 38 to 44 inclusive - Valid from January 1, 1943 to March 6, 1943." (Wikipedia HERE; also see HERE.)
- "the Leverton Company, retooled to turn out parts for tanks":
". . . Chrysler broke ground on what would come to be known as the Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant, situated in what is now the suburb of Warren. Its goal: to build swarms of tanks according to auto-making mass production principles—something never accomplished before. . . . In the end, the Detroit Arsenal built more tanks than all of the Third Reich during the war years, tanks that roared through enemy lines all the way to Hitler’s Berlin." (History.com HERE). For every tank the Germans produced the United States built three. (See MotorTrend.com HERE; also see Wikipedia HERE.)
- "Murder in the commission of a felony is murder in the first degree":
This is known as the Felony Murder Rule: "As of August 2008, 46 states in the United States had a felony murder rule, under which felony murder is generally first-degree murder. In 24 of those states, it is a capital offense. When the government seeks to impose the death penalty on someone convicted of felony murder, the Eighth Amendment has been interpreted so as to impose additional limitations on the state power. The death penalty may not be imposed if the defendant is merely a minor participant and did not actually kill or intend to kill. However, the death penalty may be imposed if the defendant is a major participant in the underlying felony and exhibits extreme indifference to human life." (Wikipedia HERE; see also HERE.)
- Cars also played an important role in the Columbo TV series, being both character designators and alibi busters (think "odometers"). Go to The Columbophile Blog (HERE) for more.
- FictionMags's story list for Edward S. Williams is impressive; his first effort was his only Western in December 1931, after which he started generating crime fiction at a prodigious rate for Dime Detective in 1934 and the other available detective pulps of the '30s and '40s, only stopping with Street & Smith's Detective Story Magazine in November 1944. Series characters: Jonathan Stark (2 stories in Detective Tales, 1937) and Dennis O'Ryley, a.k.a. "The Voice" (11 tales for Ace G-Man Stories, 1940-43).
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(2) "A Drink for Aunt Louisa."
By Francis Fredericks (?-?; FictionMags HERE).
First appearance: Detective Tales, October 1944.
Short short short story (3 pages).
Online at pulpmagazines.org (HERE; go to text page 71).
"Arnold called the turn . . . Aunt Louisa'd have her soup first, then, as usual, she'd make her tea. And—incidentally—make her nephew into a wealthy man, who would be very, very brave at her funeral. . . ."
"It was so simple. . . ." They all think that, don't they?
Main characters:
~ Arnold Hewes ("The second best was for Arnold"), Aunt Louisa ("She believed in the rights of the first-born"), Walter ("dead at thirty in a soldier's grave in Italy"), Doctor Paine ("He told me to call the police"), and Lieutenant Hallard ("I'm going to perform an experiment").
Resources:
- "A Drink for Aunt Louisa" is the only story credit listed on FictionMags for Francis Fredericks; no other data are available.
- Could "Francis Fredericks" have been Ray Cummings cruising under an alias? Certainly Cummings's affinity for the "perfect crime" has been amply demonstrated on this weblog, for examples: "The Clue Got Lost" (HERE); "The Note on the Dead Man" (HERE); "That Well-Groomed Look" (HERE); "Time for Murder" and "Time Out for Murder" (HERE); and "The Clue Outside" (HERE).
- The last story that we featured which first appeared in Detective Tales was Fredric Brown's "To Slay a Man About a Dog!" (HERE).
Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.
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