Stories & Novelettes:

The Ghost of Murder Alley (December 1933/January 1934 [one issue], Frontier Stories) [western ?]

Red Goose (February 1934, Black Mask) Ben Shaley-1
[-Reprinted in "The Hard-Boiled Omnibus: Early Stories from Black Mask", ed. Joseph T. Shaw (Simon & Schuster, hc, 1946; Pocket #852, pb, 1952);
-Reprinted in "The Mammoth Book of Pulp Action", ed. Maxim Jakubowski (Constable & Robinson, UK, 2001; Carroll & Graf, 2001)

[--Four scarlet rubies from a fat-paunched Rajah's hoard... Murder was their price and fear their heritage, for Bill Single was dogging the loot trail.]

[*main character: Sarr]
[--The Night Was Sudenly Filled with That Inhuman Scream - and the Man with the Hooked Hand Knew That Papa-loa, the Little Monster, Was Going to Strike.]

[*main character: Slattery]
[--Between the Girl's Fingers Stretched the Weird Clue to the Twenty Million Dollar Murder.]

[*main character: Gerwyn]
[--It Was Called the Case of the Man with the Cabbage Head - a $20,000 Joke That a Strange Battle in a Los Angeles Apartment House Settled.]
[!Error: 19 October 1939]

[--Creeping Across the Graves of the Dead the Murderer Came - with a Shovel in One Hand and a Gun in the Other.]

[--It Wasn't Beer - It Wasn't Ale - Yet It Was Both - and That Was Only One Puzzle in the Riddle of the Scattered Corpse.]

Body at Large, by Dave Barnes (April 1936, The Phantom Detective) Dave Barnes - pseudonym of Arthur K. Barnes (1911-1969) & Norbert Davis (1909-1949).

[* The Rag-Tag-Girl by Norbert Davis, Author of "Black Death", "Dr. Blood", etc.
--In His Attempt to Get a Friend Out of Jail, Lunsford Takes a Warped Path Through Underworld Trickery and Swift Slaughter!]

[--As Strong a Story as Was Ever Told by Norbert Davis.
--When Crooks Discover That They Have Been Double-Crossed, There Is No Telling What Will Be the Final Dread Outcome - for Their Victims.]

[*main character: Slattery]
[--On a Lonely, Hostile Isle, Deceit and Money and Dynamite Are the Weapons of a Scheming Madman.]

[--Mystery Novelette. El Diablo Negro had a strange and intricate way of saving his diamond hoard from the revolutionists.]

[--Treasure hunting in the mountains of Mexico. Needless to say, the territory is teeming with vicious desperados. No one dies gently in this one.
--Greed-Man Desperadoes Stage a Death Ambush for Possession of Buried Loot! Poco Kelly, Intrepid Adventurer, Straddles Danger Among Mexican Border Bandits!]

[--A Knockout Novelette by Norbert Davis.
--Undercover Agent Matt Tuller Face Hood Heat, When He Taunts a Killer Mob With a Date at the Death House.]

[*main character - Latimer, secret service man.
--A Complete Novelette. You take three pearls and drop them in a cauldron of tropic mystery. Stir well and mix in with a Spiggoty railroad, a fugitive from justice, and a Latin secret service man. The result — a story good to the last period!]

[--Thrilling novelette of a broken drifter — and his lone-hand fight for manhood.
--A fresh-dug grave, a grief-stricken, kneeling kid, with a hog-leg in his grimy fist, and the tearful, sweet smile of a girl — those things sent Roy Falk, broken, discouraged drifter, into Wolfville — to show a townful of blood-mad killers that no real man is ever licked, this side boothill!]

[--He Wore a Fuzzy Yellow Coat and a Shiny Topper; the Crimes He Committed Seemed as Crazy as His Clothing.]

[*main character: John Mark]
[--Dismal Rain Pierced the Dark Night and Death Walked In the Morgue.]

[--Robbing Peter to Pay Paul Is One Thing – Suing for Legal Collection Another!]

[*main character: Saul Jarret]
[--A Sculptor Should Be Able to Recognize a Chizeler When He Sees One, But Even Saul Jarret Was Fooled For a Time.]

[*main character: Dan Crail]
[--A good detective sees it through - even when the clues are tangled in murders, snow storms, dynamite, and the unpredictable movements of humans...]

[--A jealous husband, a crooked gambler, and a brutal killer can make any house party lively.]

[*main character: Randolph Lee]
[* a very long story (~ novel); an earlier version of the novel "Murder Picks the Jury" (1947, written with W. T. Ballard as Harrison Hunt).]

[--It's a long step from investigating ancient Egyptian tombs to solving a 20th century murder - but not for the "Tomb Detective".]

[--Jim Daniels was an odd young man. He wouldn't marry the girl he loved because her father had a hundred million dollars... and then he got mixed up in the case of the missing mad girl and learned the realities of love - and death. An exciting new novel.]

[--Death by daylight is something else in the dark.]

[--The gentle art of selling automobiles is apt to involve everything from kowtowing to kidnapping.]

[--A Stirring Novelette by Norbert Davis.
--Tom Gray was adept at pulling other people's coals from the fire - so he had to be called in when a red hot mamma a play for $1,000,000.]

[--Remember Counselor Jim Daniels, the courtroom magician? Again be's at his brilliant best in this novel of mystery and mayhem under the California sun.
--California has snow-capped peaks and burning sandy wastes - and Jim Daniels, following the threads of the strangest case he ever undertook, found that sudden and violent death was apt to occur in both climates. In fact, peril seemed to travel in the wake of the Young Millionaire with the Scarred Face, ready to pounce at any moment. An exciting novel of a brilliant young attorney's midwinter vacation from safety.]

[--Professor Carlson proves, to his utter dissatisfaction, that there is no logic in a nightstick.]

[*main character: Craig]
[--Here's how - and it's up to you to say when - in this mystery of a Hollywood starlet who wouldn't say "Uncle" even when she came home to murder.]

[--Les Free had an account to square with a lady, but first came murder plus a beautiful lie to make the columns come out even.]

[--William Dodd's business was bonds - not murder. The mere fact that it was bail-bonds instead of gilt-edged securities he dealt in, didn't give him any license to mix into police-work - but an impossible homicide the cops insisted on calling in accident, an amazing array of pleasant drunks, a bunch of carney folks and the prospective loss of his best customer all proved too much for his bump of curiosity. He had to solve the kill - even if it meant losing his shirt and maybe his life in the process.]

[--A "Bail-Bond Dodd" Novelette In which that fabulous luminary of the criminal courts and his man, Meekins, solve the riddle of the red-headed street-walker who handed out rubies to men she accosted on Kester Street, and bet a blue chip on murder in the red to win thanks from one gambling man and catch hell from another.]

[--A "Bail-Bond" Dodd Story In which that extraordinary luminary of the Criminal Courts involves himself in the complicated affair of Mr. Banner-Pennant - or Flag as was sometimes called. And  Mama Mandalay, that ribald and sagacious ex-doxie de luxe rallies  round when murder rears its hydra head to help Dodd clean up the kill-puzzle.]

[--Suspense-Packed Mystery Novelette. What monstrous, shapeless terror cast its spell over the huge, foreboding Grant mansion, where admission could be gained only at the point of a .45 — and exit was made feet first?
--What strange terror hung over the Grant mansion and its fearful, doomed occupants?]

[*Davis sold to Hollywood this western story. It was the basis for the black and white film "Hands Across The Rockies" (1941, Columbia, 56 minutes) Screenplay by Paul Franklin, Directed by Lambert Hillyer, Starring: Bill Elliott (as Wild Bill Hickok) & Dub Taylor (as Cannonball Taylor).]

[---Introducing Mr. Doan, probably the most cheerfully cherubic of private detectives - certainly the most dangerous. He's going up to Desolation Lake, where all the year around is raging winter - and homicide is the favorite winter sport.
  Description:  Doan, the 'hero' of this story is a small-time detective with a dry, sardonic wit, and a huge Great Dane (Carstairs--don't call him a "pet") in these absolutely delightful series of humor-tinged mysteries. Great fun that shouldn't be missed!
  In "Holocaust House" the duo is given the job of protecting a young heiress who is on the verge of inheriting millions. This is the book that introduces the duo, but the other three books are more humorous and feature the Great Dane much more prominently. A great read nonetheless!]

[*main character: Dave Bly, loan-shark's legman.
--A Complete Novelette In which a soft-hearted loan-shark's legman learns - the hard way - never to buy a strange blonde a hamburger or complain if the neighbor's radio blasts too long and loud.]

[--Exciting Novel of a Dude Ranch and Sudden Death.
--Jim Daniels is an old hand at crimes with lunatic trappings. So when he's bewildered, you've got something; you've got, in fact, a dude ranch nicely tricked out with a quite incredible Russian prince, a fugitive from a reform school, the dumbest blonde outside of Reno, several cowboys - and several dangling dead men.]

[--A Dodd Novelette. Dodd has a doleful hangover but it's nothing to the headache the benighted bail-bondsman accumulates when he finds himself in the soak for 50 Gs bail. For Sadie's kootch-show has just been raided and a cop drilled in the process! The killer may be a kootch-show comic but he's no joke to Dodd.]

[-Complete Short Novel.
--Welcome to the Mar Vista, where every guest is a millionaire, and even the law has been bought and paid for. You enjoy a gold-plated holiday here - but it's worth remembering that sometimes Death, too, takes a holiday.]

[--A Dodd Novelette. The onus of ownership hangs heavy on Dodd when a bail-security lands in his lap in the form of a low-down jive-dive, together with a boogie-playing professor, his sin-chasing wife, his sin-less "sponsor" - and a liquor bill for $613.02. But when the benighted bail-bondsman finds himself the target of an uncanny killer thirsting for blood, he's damned if he'll let him - Have One on the House.]

[*main character: Sheriff Jim Laury.
--No wonder they held the banker's son for the murder of his "date" when they found him dancing drunkenly in the graveyard by the light of the moon. But it took a sheriff with foresight to test a far-sighted witness, and place the cold hand of the law on the murderer's back.]

[--It was bad enough when Dodd had to fork up $516.87 for Blinky Tooper's funeral - only to have his criminal ex-client write him a letter of congratulation. But when someone spotted the benighted bail-bondsman as stand-in for the stiff, he had to see that the corpse climbed back in his coffin and stayed decently dead.]

[--A Bail-Bond Dodd Novelette. When Lilybud, the twelve-year-old nag that had never won a race in her life, copped the Crater Lake Sweep, Horse Car Jackson had fifty bucks on her nose - at two hundred to one! But it was Dodd who had to collect the little bum's freak bet - or forfeit his life as well as his bail-bond.]

[--American Luck the Japanese Call It; Sometimes They Add Dumb Luck!]

[--A John Collins Novelette. Barbolla, proprietor of the Jeep Inn, the soldiers' hang-out, was desperate when they took away his juke-box, but when that superlative piano-pounder Collins appeared on the scene, everybody was happy - except the killer he caught between beers]

[--A Novel of a Manhunt Through Hell!
--Nothing in the world he could either do or say would convince the cold-eyed, manhunting sheriff of Three Pines that Dave Tully, drifting pilgrim, wasn't actually his own murderer – carrying out a grim masquerade in the vain, desperate hope of avoiding hang-noose death.... For his filled grave would also fill the pockets of crookedest murder-combine on the roaring gold frontier!]

[--A Novelette of the A.V.G.
--Hired mercenaries, some called the Flying Tigers. But day after day they flew their battered, bullet-riddled planes – blasting the men of Nippon from the sky!]

[--Simon Blue, fugitive from Hitler, rode a box-car into Russia – to discover that the thundering, snow-swept battlefront was Europe's safest refuge from the Fuehrer!]

[--Argosy Novel of the Month.
--You'll feel the pulsebeat of the jungle in this lusty book-length novel of high adventure and grim Yankee humor on a crazy search for wild rubber in the black-lands of the Amazon.]

[--A "Bail-Bond" Dodd Novelette. Dodd thought he could enjoy himself the afternoon he gate-crashed into the social stratosphere of a lawn fete at J. Stuart Grant's, but murder followed him right up to the gate... Cellini, that old Roman, had been dead a long time, he discovered, but he could still cause a slaying or two.]

[--To be sure - kids liven up the home, but so does dynamite. And dear Scrawny was TNT wrapped in one small package.]

[--Mr. Bishop will never forget the day he (a) had ashes thrown in his face; (b) found a man under his wife's bed; (c) was himself accused of seduction.]

aka: Till the Killer Comes (February 1951, New Detective; also: June 1961, Detective Tales [UK])
[-- Meet Carstairs, who’s almost human ... Doan, who’s almost a cop . . . and the killer who was almost innocent — till It tracked Itself down as a corpse! Seldom have the traditional elements of a mystery thriller been brought together in a happier combination — welded by that priceless ingredient that is the hallmark of that deathless being — an author.]

[--Many a girl wouldn't stop at much to get an apartment in an overcrowded city. But Miss Beryl Brown was different: She wouldn't stop anything.]

[*misprint: The Deperate Divorcee]
[--A gay romance that reveals a dangerous truth: In Hollywood a divorce doesn't always mean you are no longer married.]

[--He owned a hundred front feet on Happiness Street in the City with a Friendly Future, but when the girl came along it seemed like Gloom Alley.]

[--The sergeant mistrusted civilians, particularly female civilians, but a girl reporter who played chess taught him a few important new moves.]

[--Hesitance's heart was tripping over her bank account until she got the last laugh in a gagman by combining money with romance.]

[--If your eyeballs don't pop out and bounce when you read this story, then our heroine isn't as blood-curdling as she thinks she is.]

[--John Thursday meant well, but he found it hard to cope with a crooked uncle and a pretty stranger who was always yelling: "Police!"]

[--Is it ever good technique for a man to tell a girl that her father is an old walrus... even when it's true?]

[--Any man who will hit a child - the bounder - is mean enough to borrow one piece of a girl's two-piece bathing suit - the beast. But Clancy had a secret they needed in the big house on the hill.]

[--When Kelly Hiram walked into the employment agency things began to happen. He found a fraud, a job and a girl who informed him: "You are exactly the type of veteran that is ruining this country!".]

[--A partnership in the firm was within young Driscoll's reach if he continued to make good - as Miss Allstair's fiancé, errand boy and doormat.]

[--The deer didn't really mean any harm - and the girl was just trying to be neighborly. Or was she?]

[--Is a woman justified in using her sex to keep from being evicted?]

[--To get what she wanted she'd break a man's heart - or her own.]

[--She was the loveliest crook he had ever met. How could he refuse when she asked him to hide her?]

[--If a girl tried to flag you down on the road would you drive on, wondering what adventure you missed - or stop and take a chance?]

[--She couldn't stand the dullness of being a college professor's wife. She left him - never dreaming another woman might want him.]

[--George objected to being robbed in cold blood, so Uncle Hermy turned on the heat.]

Novels:

[--Doan is a detective and Carstairs his enormous canine companion (don't call him a "pet"), and in this first hard-boiled adventure they travel to Mexico, along with an heiress, a revolutionary, an artist, and more than a few mysteries.]

[--In this adventure, G-men take over Doan's life and complications ensue - a search for unique ore in the demented desert town of Heliotrope, mistaken identity, spies, and general chaos. As usual, the dog steals the show...
--Doan's on a government-sponsored mission to find an ore deposit in the Mojave Desert, but he's got to manage an odd (and oddly named) bunch of characters Dust-Mouth Haggerty knows where the mine is but isn't telling; Doc Gravelmeyer's learning how undertaking can be a "growth industry"; and film star Susan Sally's days are numbered in an old-fashioned romp that matches its bloody crimes with belly laughs.]

[--Doane and Carstairs Again!]

[--There were three witnesses to swear that only Gregory Drake could have been in the back room with Maysie Grey when she was strangled to death. Even Randolph Lee, Drake's defense counsel, thought that his client was guilty. It took two more murders to wake Lee up, to show him that the only way he himself could survive was to track down the killer, before the killer found him...]

Collections:

[*with Introduction by John D. MacDonald. Contains all five of the Max Latin stories which appeared in Dime Detective in the 1940s.]