THE SHADOW: THE SHADOW'S JUSTICE/THE BROKEN NAPOLEONS

I finished reading THE SHADOW VOLUME 6 last night. It's another superlative pulp reprint collection from Nostalgia Ventures featuring two vintage Shadow adventures from the 1930s.

The first story, THE SHADOW'S JUSTICE, was originally published in the April 15, 1933 edition of THE SHADOW MAGAZINE. The second, THE BROKEN NAPOLEONS, hails from July 15th, 1936. Both yarns were written by Walter Gibson, under the house name of "Maxwell Grant" and both feature the Knight of Darkness operating outside of the usual confines of New York City.

THE SHADOW'S JUSTICE takes The Shadow, agent Harry Vincent and the heir to a vast fortune from the back streets of Havana, Cuba to the wilds of Michigan. Crooks are on the trail also as all of the players search for a hidden mine containing a fortune waiting to be gained, legally or by force of arms. The Shadow uses his legendary auto gyro flying machine to find the mine and there's an explosive showdown between the forces of good and evil within the mine tunnels.

Next, The Shadow and an agent-by-proxy, the gone-straight son of a deceased gangster, take a voyage into mystery and danger in THE BROKEN NAPOLEONS. The pair are on the trail of the super fiend Levautour (French for "Vulture), a mysterious criminal mastermind that leaves a sinister calling card at the scene of his crimes: one half of a broken Napoleon coin. Most of the action takes place on a private yacht bound from Bermuda to New York City. The young man, Curt Sturley, plays detective to find out which of the passengers is the crime lord while the Shadow (disguised, of course) is also on board conducting his own investigation. It's a good little mystery marked by more than one ship board shootout.

In addition to these reprints, the volume contains background material by pulp expert Will Murray, an article on illustrator Tom Lovell and a short bio of Walter Gibson.

Nostalgia Ventures has done a bang up job with this series and this volume is another winner. Thumbs up.