NICK CARTER

Picked this beauty up at half price at the Austin Books Side Kick store back in August. 144 pages of glorious pulp adventure fun for only $7.50. How could I go wrong? Like they say on AMERICAN PICKERS, they made me buy it.

Earlier this year I read a couple of Nick Carter paperback novels. One, SAIGON, was from the 1960s, the other, SAMURAI KILL, was from the 1980s. Carter was not only the eponymous hero of these books, he was also the "author". Nick Carter, a venerable pulp hero who dates back to the 19th century, was updated and modernized as a super spy for the late twentieth century, a sort of American James Bond whose adventures were written by a variety of pulpsters all working under the house name "Nick Carter."

The pulp facsimile featured above (which I finished reading the other evening), contains Carter stories from two different eras of his long and checkered career. The first three stories comprise one long Nick Carter adventure but are written so that each installment can also stand alone. They are DR. QUARTZ RETURNS from DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE December 11th, 1926, NICK CARTER CORNERS DR. QUARTZ from DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE December 25th, 1926 and NICK CARTER'S DANGER TRAIL from DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE January 22nd, 1927. Carter and his arch foe, Dr. Quartz, recall the relationship between another super-sleuth, Sherlock Holmes and his nemesis, Professor Moriarty. But Carter and Quartz first meeting was published in 1891, which pre-dates Holmes and Moriarty's first battle, published in 1893. It's an interesting comparison but an unfair one to be frank because even when handled by the best writers, Nick Carter and Dr. Quartz aren't as mythic, legendary and iconic as Holmes and the Napoleon of Crime.

But Nick's duel to the death with the master villain, as told by ZORRO creator Johnston McCulley, is nonetheless great fun to read as Carter matches wits with the fiend, encountering a series of death traps and narrow escapes over the course of the three episodes.

In the 1930s, after both The Shadow and Doc Savage took off and began receiving astonishing sales and popular acclaim,  the race was on to create other pulp magazines starring larger than life heroes and villains. Street & Smith, the publishers of the earlier DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE title, decided to dust off Nick Carter and launch a new magazine carrying his name. This iteration of Nick Carter was a two-fisted, hard-boiled detective who fights crime with the aide of his adopted son, Chick Carter and his friend, Patsy Garvan (who, despite the name, is a man).

 In THE WAR MAKERS, originally published in April, 1936, an international spy ring steals a death ray from its' inventor, Dr. Fraile. Fraile and his comely young daughter are also taken captive by the gang which plans to sell the death ray to the insurgent nation of Emporia, which will then use the weapon in an attack on the United States. Nick Carter, aided by newspaper reporter Jack Duane, are hot on the trail of the espionage gang, whose mastermind is the mysterious, masked "Mr. B". The action is fast and furious with plenty of gun battles to spice things up. THE WAR MAKERS reads more like a Doc Savage novel than your typical detective thriller but Carter lacks the extraordinary physical and mental abilities of Doc and he does not have any of Doc's remarkable gadgets. But he has two blazing hand guns, a sharp mind and an indomitable will, all of which is more than enough to save the day.

I loved reading these Nick Carter yarns. They're all fast paced and fun with colorful villains and a tough, square-jawed hero who always wins. Thumbs up.