The Shadow # 105 – The Yellow Door

TLDR: it’s Harry Vincent’s finest hour.

Since the 1942-batch of novels was heavy going, I zigged back to this one. It was published in 1936 and showcases The Shadow and his agents at the top of their game. Cliff Marsland, Rutledge Mann, Hawkeye, and Jericho Druke get some pagetime. Even Burbank gets a chance to get some fresh air, taking up a field operations post in New Jersey and running mission control for Vic Marquette and the G-men.

So I’ve reported at length about the taut pacing and easy to follow, fast-moving plots Walter B. Gibson had pretty much perfected. I’ve also mentioned that his characterization skills benefited, rather than suffered, from brevity. With less leeway for self-indulgence, only the most relevant, vivid, and memorable traits of each character are showcased, and these are shown only in service of moving the plot forward. So Hawkeye is the best trailer and spotter in the business: he finds his man and trails him without anybody any the wiser, uncovering vital clues. Cliff Marsland is a gunman who walks his own trail in the badlands, and is cool as a cat while the bullets are flying. Burbank is a technological wizard with nerves of absolute tungsten and an unflappably methodical manner. Unlike some other pulp novels (by which I mean: Doc Savage), The Shadow isn’t a huge gadgeteer even though he does stay on the cutting edge of aeronautic developments. The most complicated device he or his agents carry normally is a flashlight. This is one of the exceptions, as Harry Vincent is sent off undercover equipped with a miniature radio transmitter which The Shadow and Burbank use their own send/receiving stations to triangulate in on and discover the secret Citadel of the hidden Yellow Door. It’s smart, but feels entirely grounded.

Oh yeah, and then there’s Harry Vincent (sigh). Actually, though, as remarked above, Harry Vincent actually lives up to his moniker as The Shadow’s “most competent agent” in this book, hardly at all making a misstep until the 94% marker, and that barely through any fault of his own, and then also taking on his direct antagonist, and contributing to the big shot villain’s demise by lead injection. Not bad for our boy who usually is the resident punching bag. (There is also another Shadow story wherein Harry Vincent makes a triumphal exit from an underground lair shirtless, waving a gun, with a disheveled damsel clinging to him…but he’s done like 2% of the work in that particular instance, and also I just can’t take that mental image seriously. I mean, it’s Harry Vincent. Come on.) Still! He does good in this book. Let us not forget this.

Okay, so. The other part of why earlier plots feel more grounded and competent is because…they are. Instead of having a so-called detective who be led by the nose from obvious clue to obvious clue (looking at you, Bruce), The Shadow actually investigates. He tails suspects, confirms theories, and, well, he would have interrogated the suspects, too, if they hadn’t ended up eating a bullet in the ensuing gunfight. Ah well. What’s more, since this case is fairly simple and because The Shadow has almost an inside man on the job, the complicating twists are almost entirely supplied by forces which The Shadow cannot reasonably predict: Police Commissioner Weston and his attempts at detectiving.

Our game begins to foot with the entrance of James Dynoth, who has just murdered the wealthy businessman Peter Gildare and returned to his home preparatory to fleeing to the safety of the Citadel. He is given twenty minutes to pack and depart. About fifteen minutes in, he turns around to find an ominous black-clad figure standing behind him. The Shadow was too late to save the dying man, but not too late to hear his dying words. Among these words were “The Yellow Door.” We are about to find out exactly what this means when twenty past eight hits and a) Dynoth’s nerve gives out and he crunches his suicide capsule, b) a machine gun opens up on the house, c) the house explodes. The Shadow escapes with some injury, but does have a lead to follow up on: a man named Ferris Krode, who works in Cleveland and knows about The Yellow Door.

Meanwhile, millionaire businessman Dudley Birklam is confiding in Vic Marquette. Birklam has been approached by a man named Ferris Krode and warned that certain courses of action will lead to trouble for him and his business. He fears that Krode is involved with the prior deaths, of which Gildare’s was typical. Marquette promises government protection to big business, because of course he does.

The Shadow has carried this deduction still further, and has a man on the spot. And it’s Harry Vincent. Now, normally this would result in Harry getting slugged over the head, kidnapped, or shot at, but in this case Harry actually manages not only to bluff Krode into thinking that he’s there for the 11:00 meeting with “Mandon,” he also turns around and manages to convince the real Mandon that he’s Krode, uncovering valuable information the entire time.

The Yellow Door is a secret society of blackmailers, saboteurs, and industrial spies, running a multi-industry racket.  It’s also an actual door, in a place called the Citadel, where the big shot is. Krode is the highest ranking man that The Shadow or Harry Vincent are able to discover, but he isn’t the big shot. And if he isn’t, who is…? The Shadow intends to find out, although he is substantially hindered at critical points by the not-so-cunning plans of Commissioner Weston. Like, seriously, Commissioner, stick to the budget and presiding over official breakfasts.

Another great thing is that having a proactive hero makes it easier to showcase that hero’s competence, as well. The Shadow already has a plan in place for the final battle–position the G-Men and have them rush in guns blazing once he, Burbank, and Harry Vincent have collaborated to locate the Citadel–but when he gets the information that the perimeter fence is electrified and the surrounding hillside is mind, The Shadow instantly adjusts his plans and orders his forces accordingly.

Overall, this story seems as though the author enjoyed writing it. There’s an eagerness to the descriptions and plot, and a relish to the action–and even a few witty flourishes, such as his description of Guzzler’s Joint:

The proprietor was leaning on the bar, his fat arms folded, surveying the customers with a pleasant grin. To Guzzler, the middle line of the room was like the bars of a cage; on one side, the monkeys – on the other, visitors to the zoo. In comparing the boastful thugs and the society habitues, Guzzler had never yet decided which were the apes and which the humans. Guzzler was philosophical as well as imaginative.

Rated: I liked this book and reading it made me happy.

The Shadow # 35 – The Black Hush

So this one was published in August of 1933, written by Walter B. Gibson alias Maxwell Grant, cover art by George Rozen.

This is just a really superior Shadow story. It’s just really good and perfectly pleasing, and it made me feel happy.

It’s kind of hard to say more than that, so instead, I’ll talk about how Maxwell Grant (nee Walter B. Gibson) made his hero effective by focusing on the villains.

Think about standard plot structure: the hero wins, the villain loses. Most authors begin with this premise and work outwards from there. They craft from the top down to create situations where the villains lose. This is why the Death Star had a conveniently-placed ventilation shaft, why the hive swarm goes immobile instead of berserk when the queen is deactivated, why Sauron poured so much of his own being and power into the One Ring that destroying it destroys him utterly. At the more tactical level, it’s why the gangsters playing poker in the front room keep their backs strategically to the window, or a sentry decides not to investigate the rustling and muffled cursing noises from that bramble patch–but does go chase a pebble down the dark hallway. Most authors position their villains for failure. Then they allow the hero to win (sometimes after a stiff struggle getting through the trench run, sure, but still.)

However, Gibson reversed this. He planned how his villains should win, and then engineered a way to prevent them. For instance: mobsters under command of a ruthless mob leader and supported with a dark ray that will suppress alarms and opposition (so no witnesses, no police, no watchmen), and equipped with explosives, guns, and getaway cars are at one point preparing to take on the New City Bank. They’re a tough, picked crew and they know their stuff. Fifteen minutes are all they need. What can The Shadow possibly do to stop them? Well, he could get there first, so they don’t ever even get their fifteen minutes, and then he could have backup arrive to provide cross-fire.

So, he’d need to know where they’re going and when. He needs to have access to Goldy Tancred’s inner circle, and Goldy isn’t accepting visitors. So: Clyde Burke and Burbank bug Goldy’s apartment, and, this not even being enough once Goldy develops an entirely new, healthy respect for operational security measures, The Shadow drops in and goes through the waste-paper basket. So Harry Vincent befriends the unlucky young engineer-inventor who seems to have gotten mixed up in this whole mess and tries to find out what he knows about the Black Hush. So The Shadow knows the target, the time, and their general plan. So, when the (remaining) gangsters flee to their countryside lair to lick their wounds and plot subsequent days’ revenge, The Shadow knows where they are and also (sigh) that Harry Vincent needs rescuing.

Villains are never stupid, although the monomaniacal supervillain-types do tend to be somewhat dense, admittedly. As a whole, they are adaptive, clever, and increasingly well-prepared for the physical threat that The Shadow represents (multiple cars with machine guns, and plenty of hand grenades: standard anti-Shadow ordnance.) Goldy Tancred, for instance, discovers the wiretap almost immediately and begins using it for counter-surveillance, flushing out Clyde Burke as a spy, and from then on putting all orders in writing and then burning the notes.

Pity he didn’t try re-sweeping the whole apartment for bugs after nullifying the first one….

Gibson’s Shadow stories have an enduring fascination, because, instead of making the villains weaker than the hero, he made the hero stronger than them. He lets the struggle play out on a level just slightly higher, and slightly better thought out, than the zero ground most heroes (i.e., BATMAN) operate at.

All that being said, what’s this one about, and is it just another pulp action story, told at breakneck speed so the incongruities of plot don’t register until later?

So we start off in a swanky hotel, where two groups are gathered. One is a group of mobsters, prominently starring one Goldy Tancred–who has requested police presence, just to keep things peaceable–and the other a conference of electrical engineers. The hotel is suddenly hit by a strange, complete, darkness that deactivates electrical and mechanical devices and can only be barely pierced by acetylene torches–such as are being carried by a small hit-squad that brutally assassinates…a random engineer at the banquet. The obvious conclusion is that Goldy Tancred and his ilk, in the west ballroom, were the targets, and the engineer in the east room was killed by mistake. Goldy certainly seems to believe this, as he promptly goes into seclusion, but although New York’s finest ace detective considers the motive clear, The Shadow thinks differently, and moves to investigate.

What is Goldy’s real game? Where is the source of the Black Hush? How is Harry Vincent going to screw up this time?

Read it and find out…

Rated: There’s also a thrilling death-from-above entry via autogiro, it’s kind of awesome.

The Shadow Magazine #22 – The Creeping Death

So, The Creeping Death is the twenty-second The Shadow story, and was published in 1933. And it’s a bit strange to come back to after the more settled formula of the later Shadow books.

The Lamont Cranston persona is a colder, more impressive figure–less of the languid man-about-town and more of a) a financier chiefly interested in money and new inventions (Cranston would probably have quite a lot of SpaceX stock, one surmises), b) very obviously a disguise used by a dangerous and indomitable figure. But, then to remind us that we are in fact dealing with a master of disguise, there’s also the not-nearly-as-transparent Phineas Twambly, a doddering and nearly-deaf old man who couldn’t possibly be less of a threat to the men staking out the lobby of the Westbrook Falls Inn and eyeing each other like the predators they are.

Then there’s the plot, which–in good form for the earlier books–is carried primarily through the actions of the villains, and seen primarily through either their eyes or the eyes of the proxy hero, in this case Vic Marquette of the Secret Service. The Shadow himself lurks, listens in, silhouettes, menaces, and only just intervenes to tip the scales here and there, mostly just letting the bad guys play out their mummery amongst themselves with hilarious and deadly results. Until–well, you’d have to read the book to see. Heroes react; great heroes act; smart heroes decide when to act and when to stand back and utter a soft, grim, mocking laugh at the follies of others.

The titular creeping death is introduced in the first chapter, when a Mr. Jerry Fitzroy collapses and dies in his hotel room, only barely able to gasp out a few words–words seemingly overheard only by the hotel physician and detective. Some part of the mystery is cleared promptly, when Fitzroy is revealed to be a Secret Service agent, recently returned from a trip to the small town of Westbrook Falls. The gold coin in Fitzroy’s pocket is one of a strange kind that has been recently flooding the market: a strange alloy with the appearance and physical qualities of gold that still is not gold. The partridge feather in his pocket is a little more mysterious….but not to The Shadow.

And not, for very long, to the audience either, with the introduction of elderly inventor/chemist Lucien Partridge and his hidden laboratory in Westbrook Falls. Partridge has a business arrangement with several other American businessmen, who believe they are exploiting him for the synthetic gold which they receive and distribute. The reverse turns out to be the case…and, what’s more, Partridge’s network is worldwide: he has multiple contacts in multiple countries through which he is exchanging fake gold for real, which he has stored on the grounds and with which–and the creeping death–he intends to launch a reign of terror which will ultimately end with him becoming world emperor.

But in the meanwhile and somewhat more pressingly, he going to have to deal with some internal personnel and management problems first. You see, it has occurred to multiple branches of his organization that “fake gold out -> real gold in = somewhere, massive stockpile of real gold.” And the Americans, the French, and the Spaniards, all want a much bigger cut than what they’re getting.–and therein lies the meat of the story, watching them variously blunder, plot, counterplot, form alliances, sneak, backstab, and bluster as they jockey for position and information–all under the glittering eye and grotesque shadow of…The Shadow!

The villain himself, Lucien Partridge, is an interesting mix of megalomania and practicality. Yes, he wants to be the emperor of the world and believes he will be welcomed with open arms at the end of, well, a rain of terror–but he has a fairly chilling plan for enacting said terrorism, and a very practical one for bankrolling it. He’s resourceful and cunning enough to have agents in many countries and be collecting revenue from each of them. And he controls the Creeping Death, an insidious and almost undetectable method of murder which leaves its victims unmarked, able to travel far away from the cause of their death while leaving their murderer unsuspected. (Although he did have to knife Li Tan Chang to get its secrets. What happens in Shanghai stays in Shanghai.)

The Shadow’s usual agents are scarce this time. Harry Vincent gets about half a page of screentime, which might have contributed to why this mission had such smooth sailing. So the primary proxy hero is Vic Marquette, and he’s…okay. For a Fed.

And…the cover art is fantastic.

And that’s about all I have to say. This is a top-notch early Shadow story, and if you know the genre, know the author and his style, you know that means a rippin’ good yarn. You really can’t ask for better than that.

Rated: This your final warning, Jose! Those that disobey my word–die!

The Shadow Magazine #42 – Mox

So. One of the ways that The Shadow’s mysterious ways remained mysterious is by not including his point of view. He is shown, in certain stories, either as a gliding, cloaked-and-hatted shape through the, uh, somewhat dispassionate lens of the omniscient narrator–observing and describing his actions but offering little concrete commentary on his motivations.

Some books don’t even have an alter-ego for The Shadow–only spectral laughter and sinister whispers; some books have him assume an entirely new personality for the length of the story, discarding it and revealing himself only to thwart evil at the climax.

Alternatively, sight of The Shadow is filtered through the eyes of a POV character…who is generally far, far from omniscient. This contributes to the overall mystery (since they are generally baffled and/or completely wrong about their deductions,) or to the plot (because Harry Vincent is going to a) get clobbered and kidnapped, b) screw up his mission. Sigh.)

In this case, the narrative viewpoint largely follows Joe Cardona, currently an Acting Inspector and generally regarded as the ace sleuth of New York City’s police force–largely because of assistance from a certain black-clad force of justice and vengeance that he cannot formally admit exists, especially to his skeptic boss. “Mox” is Jarvis Moxton, a wealthy speculator whose name soon becomes of interest to investigators looking into the death of contracting agent, Schuyler Harlew. (How that happens is admittedly via a long, long shot, but for such deductions is The Shadow famed.) It transpires that Mox–Moxton–has been locating inventors of promising but underfunded projects, luring them to his countryside lair with promises of money and support, and there–at the stroke of midnight–destroying them! The Shadow puts the pieces together just a tad too late to save another unlucky victim, but he vows that no others will so die!

He succeeds, too, in a brief-but-awesome battle that a) saves an innocent life, b) decimates Mox’s henchmen, c) reveals Mox’s true nature to local authorities, and d) forces Mox into flight. Local authorities, in the person of the cool and cantankerous Sheriff Junius Tharbel, soon seem to have cracked open the case–much to the displeasure of the visiting Joe Cardona, who begins a bitter and one-sided rivalry as a result–but the question still remains to be solved as to where–or who–of the suspects Mox truly is. Junius Tharbel has jurisdiction; he also has the scoop. And a material witness. And also a dog….and yet who seemingly has more interest in going off huntin’ with his country hick friends (you know: the short fat one and the tall thin one) than in tracking down Mox.

The dog is a Dalmatian by the way, which are not actually great pets. They have a high prey drive and can be very aggressive. Also, they have a congenital tendency to deafness and need special food because they also have a tendency to kidney disease. Anyway, the dog is also a material witness in the case. But how does Junius Tharbel actually plan to crack this case–and, more importantly, does The Shadow?

I’ve also talked at length before about how Walter B. Gibson never cheapens his work by letting The Shadow’s power level vary strategically with circumstances. It’s never conveniently just one notch above his current adversaries: it’s always at eleven. Sometimes The Shadow mows through opponents easily: if, for instance, he’s up against a handful of disunified, poorly-coordinated mooks in a dimly-lit area, or if he gets into a hand-to-hand fight with someone whose only combat experience is brawling with other thugs. Sometimes, he struggles rather more–giant Mongol henchmen are always a toughie; and gangsters prepared with anti-Shadow ordnances such as machine guns and spotlights, definitely make things very hot indeed. And sometimes he does get flat-out beaten to the punch, such as when he attempted to jump a squad of Japanese jiu-jitsu masters, or accidentally triggered a voice-activated murder robot.

But when The Shadow is on the struggling side, Gibson never cheats on his behalf to even things back up. Mongol warriors don’t suddenly lose their fighting skills or their brains; they get outmaneuvered, or they end up fighting Jericho Druke, or they get shot. Murder robots…actually, I forget how that one got solved, that was kind of weird. Spotlights get shot out. Carloads of crooks get sniped from mobile or covered positions; they don’t all die, but they are scattered and forced to retreat. Ninja masters get the snot scared out of them in a darkened room and The Shadow gets his last laugh. There’s a real-world logic to the winning of these conflicts that lends them–no matter how outlandish the situation–a verisimilitude, a weight and tension, that’s absent from other stories of the kind.

Clyde Burke liaises with Cardona and Tharbel, and The Shadow glides about in the background, communicating via phone calls and whispers so sinister his own agent gets the chills. There’s a spidery henchman who kills on the stroke of midnight, a death-pit, hidden rooms, secret identities, and red herrings galore.

And so it goes.

This is really a superb Shadow story, so much so that it received a follow-up, Crime County, several years later, starring Junius Tharbel and a dog named–Mox.

Rated: W-A-D-E-H-O-S-T-H-I-S-T-H-E-S-H-A-D-O-W

The Shadow # 203 – Crime at Seven Oaks

See the cover? That’s a dog. This is a great story, hands-down, QED. Any book that has a dog in a prominent role is automatically a winner. This is a rule that crosses genres: any scifi, mystery, fantasy, or western story that has a dog, jumps at least three points. (Westerns that also highlight the importance, not to mention the personalities, of the horses involved, gain five points. Science fiction tends to be more about cats, but that’s hearkening back to the “space-navy” side of the equation, rather than the “pulp Westerns IN SPACE” genre foundations.)

Needless to say, Vulcan the Great Dane is basically the co-hero of this novel, and it’s a story that is perfectly pleasing in almost every way. (It helps that this story follows #202, Prince of Evil, written by Theodore Tinsley and squarely in the with the salaciousness cranked up until the knob falls off but the intelligence turned to “Is this thing on?” A fine read, to be sure, but definitely a lesser effort.)

It’s one of those stories that showcase Walter B. Gibson’s adroitness for keeping The Shadow’s adventures fresh and interesting by varying the setting, genre, and supporting characters’ roles. In this case, rather than New York City, the little town of Northdale is the backdrop and the setting is a lonely estate mansion (Seven Oaks) on whom troubles already hang and disaster portends. The genre is, well, it’s still pulp noir but with added dollops of gothic melodrama; and there is a madwoman, her nearly-equally disturbed husband, their quasi-telepathic twins, a mysterious stranger, a weirdly chipper young doctor–and as mentioned, the main secondary hero (and, frankly, the most successful impromptu agent The Shadow has ever employed) is a dog.

So. It’s a dark and stormy night, (because of course it is) and a man with the initials C. T. is waylaid and robbed at the very gates of Seven Oaks. He’s Carl Thayer and he’s saved by the intervention of The Shadow–who has been trailing Clint Flenn’s mob for a while–and makes it to the house, there to receive sympathetic and medical treatment, mostly at the hands of Janice Melridge. Janice and Bob are the twenty year old twins who have apparently little to do but wait to come of age and worry over their mother’s condition, and when your mother spends most of her time talking about voices and banshees, and your father is getting frustrated to the point of choking her out, who wouldn’t be? So the middle-aged but still handsome Carl Thayer finds a warm welcome and proceeds to make the most of it.

Clint Flenn, meanwhile, finding the spoils from the opening brigandage rather measly, decides on kidnapping the Melridge moll for ransom as the next move. The Shadow himself is listening in on this conference, however, and and so begins a cat-and-mouse game that progresses through the halls of Seven Oaks, the streets of Northdale, and the cavern-fractured countryside beyond. To summarize events would be to spoil, and this is actually one of those stories that, even knowing Gibson’s penchant for twists and reversals, kept me guessing until the end.

There are no other agents in this particular story, which is fine, because once Vulcan gets recruited by The Shadow, he does a lot of heavy lifting, including one nick-of-time rescue during a three-way battle involving a box of incriminating evidence and a safe full of payroll deposits, that leaves Bob Melridge, his rescuee, completely baffled, heh.

We all have witnessed how terrifying The Shadow is to malefactors, evil-doers, thugs, and malcontents; the flip side of this is that he is a calming, reassuring, instantly trustworthy presence to the innocent, even if they’re the kind of innocent who don’t look it, having been thrust into a frame and are panicking and lashing out. Dogs, naturally, are no exception. Previous stories has seen The Shadow square off against hostile guard dogs, and either hiss or glare them into submission. Vulcan gets the hiss treatment and promptly begins play-fighting with The Shadow’s cloak sleeve, but we are also reminded that he’s a dog on whose judgment the family relies to begin with. And with good reason. (Vulcan also has had some police/guard training, which is what makes him a useful ally in the first place.)

Now, Gibson avoids the trap of making Vulcan too intelligent by letting him be governed by The Shadow, and The Shadow’s superb competence. It’s by making him the only agent to actually follow orders successfully, that allows him to be the hugely effective good boy he is. Harry Vincent is really lucky Vulcan didn’t decide to follow The Shadow home at the end.

The other characters are interesting as well, given the gothic melodrama / gangster noir genre blend of the book, briefly but adroitly handled by Gibson. Clint Flenn, the gang leader, is actually an interestingly authoritative figure, with an alluded-to history of success, successful alibis, and a proven record of cool-headedness, daring, and marksmanship. Mind you, if he’d been slightly less cool when that rat Trigg Unger started squealing that he’d cornered The Shadow down in the basement, he could have been on to something, but, well.

In some ways this is a throwback story: The Shadow spends much of his time hidden, in Shadow garb, only revealing himself at the very end of the novel; and the Lamont Cranston identity is used sparingly. There are multiple gunfights which end with a satisfying number of bodies–and there’s even an interestingly gruesome moment where The Shadow, providing cover for another escape, crashes his car into a barricade hiding entrenched crooks, sending bodies flying (and earning another concussion, but never mind.) He also pistol-whips a couple of crooks with his .45. If it’s the same style as the gun he used in Spoils of The Shadow, which has a hair-trigger and no safety catch, is it really safe to be using the butt end of the gun to slug people with, though? One wonders. Usually he just bashes people with the muzzle, but there’s an explicit mention of knocking out a sentry with the butt of the gun. Oh well.

There’s a lot more to say about this novel, in some ways, but in others, not really. It’s got gunfights, car chases, a really good boyo, haunted houses, madwomen, psychic twins, gangsters, double-crosses, inheritances, mysterious paintings overlooking events with a somber eye, alibis, taking the heat for your loved ones, and highway robbery. It’s got The Shadow protecting innocents, terrorizing crooks, and solving crimes with a discerning eye and strategic hand that proves why he is and always will be the master foe of evil.

Rated: I heard The Shadow’s ha-ha and I scrammed, boss.

The Shadow #97 – The Voodoo Master

So having gone on at length as to how Shiwan Khan–who, having a positive gluttony for punishment, just kept coming back to New York to receive his due whalloping for four books in a row–is a decidedly unimpressive supervillain and deserve no such credit as “archrival” or “nemesis,” here is a rundown of the first appearance to a character who does make a worthy rival to The Shadow: Doctor Rodil Mocquino, the Voodoo Master.

In brief, my thesis is: this book is perfectly executed to show that Mocquino is a supremely dangerous, intelligent, ambitious enemy–and that The Shadow is more powerful, insightful, and and deadly than he….while still retaining suspense, interpersonal danger, and plenty of excitement.

The plot begins with the police acquiring a zombi, not that they know what he is exactly or how to spell it. Ace Inspector Cardona, who has something of a clew now and then, calls in Doctor Rupert Sayre–who calls for his sometimes-client, sometimes-superior, Lamont Cranston, whom he believes to be The Shadow. Yes, it’s out of the ordinary for an M.D. to call in a civilian to make a diagnosis, but then Dr. Sayre doesn’t have that much experience with West Indian superstition, crime lords, methods of subtle and unsubtle psychological torture, and fiendish plots.

Our heroes soon learn details of the last item: a voodoo cult in the very heart of New York, figuring highly placed members of society–who have been programmed or lured into observing with fiendish glee the voodoo deaths of their own close relatives, their friends or employers…. deaths in effigy which are soon duplicated mysteriously in the flesh, leaving said cultees in the possession of, often, great wealth. More to the point, the former zombi, Stanton Wallace, fears for the life of his employer, Texan millionaire Dunley Bligh. Bligh’s situation is set up for a pretty seamless murder. He is on board an ocean liner that has already left port, there to receive a consignment of jewels from the ship’s purser; he has heart issues and takes daily medications at a clinical dosage that is just barely below the fatal one.

Observe how there is a greater but currently immobile threat–The Voodoo Master and his ring of minions (currently numbering about twenty. Keep an eye on that number, because it declines over the course of this novel, heh)–and also an innocent in immediate danger, elsewhere. Standard stuff, obvious, sure: but where The Shadow shows his superiority is that he doesn’t rush headlong to the rescue, committing his full strength in one single, less important, direction. (As, for instance, Tarzan, John Carter, Batman, or Feanor would.)

The Shadow has already located the Voodoo Master’s cult headquarters; he leaves it under close observation by his most competent agents (cough, not Harry Vincent, cough.) Mocquino cannot move without this information reaching The Shadow; and via Burbank and a wireless radio, any such move can be traced or countered. While not negated, the greater threat is controlled. This leaves The Shadow clear to move to the rescue of Dunley Bligh. An artificial crisis is not created by having the hero completely withdraw the field and leave the villain free to act.

Needless to say, the other way The Shadow > other heroes is that he also succeeds when he sets out to rescue the innocent bystander. One of the cheesy but utterly endearing parts of the early to mid-stage Shadow novels is the author’s fullhearted intention to make his hero awesome by any means necessary, even if it was offscreen. The Shadow reaches the outbound ocean liner with the cover story of participating in an aeronautic stunt flight to land an autogiro on a moving vessel, and the audience, like Dunley Bligh, learns from the ship’s purser that “The landing was perfect!” Because of course it was. 

Meanwhile, while an artificial crisis has been avoided, a genuine one results: Stanton Wallace sends Cardona and a posse of headquarters detectives into a trap. Doctor Mocquino’s men get the drop on the detectives and hold them at gunpoint just long enough for everyone to evacuate the voodoo cult headquarters.–Just time enough for Hawkeye to put a call into Burbank, and a strange, swift, wingless plane to swing wide of the Newark airport and drop a passenger off on a rooftop (the landing, again, perfect, although we don’t get to see how well Miles Crofton handles the take-off. Honestly, poor Crofton has like the most thankless job of all The Shadow’s agents, considering how he gets shown up almost every time he’s on screen.)

The Shadow manages to save Cardona and the detectives (remember: not like other heroes), and to thin out Mocquino’s minions–but, the Voodoo Master manages to completely vanish.

This section of the novel is where Mocquino begins to show his own quality–by managing his disappearing act in the first place, smoothly enough that the police never do figure it out; by continuing on the offensive and defensive;  and by maintaining enough firepower to continue to be a threat, even to The Shadow and his agents.

Doctor Mocquino traces the source of the leak to his organization backwards–to Stanton Wallace–but also forwards, placing preemptive countermeasures in the house of the next most likely cultist to be spotted and interrogated by either the police or The Shadow. What’s more, those countermeasures are effective. (Mind you, if Dr. Sayre had more experience at the spy game, and Sergeant Markham wasn’t a moron, Mocquino would have had much less success. Alas. Note, however, that Cardona is allowed to show his intelligence by calling Markham out for the blockhead he is.)

Anyhow, the tension remains high, because The Shadow is physically injured while making his escape, and Doctor Sayre’s combination of over-caution and inexperience prevents him from taking the correct measures. Also, (sigh) Harry Vincent has walked directly into a trap along with Stanton Wallace and needs to be rescued, but never mind. You’d think that these are straits dire enough in themselves, but no: Mocquino continues on the offensive, sending minions to capture Doctor Sayre (they escape with their lives only because The Shadow is too physically weak to pursue them, and are terrified by the notion that an actual sorcerer ghost is after them.)

“The Shadow is not human!” he gasped. “He is what I say—a ghost! Bullets pass through him like a vapor! We do not doubt your power, master. But The Shadow, too, has power—”
Manuel was nodding. Arilla kept on: “At the old house!” he panted. “I have talked with those who fought there. No bullets could harm The Shadow! He advanced in the face of guns! At Rathcourt’s—I have talked with Manuel—let him speak—”
“I saw The Shadow at Rathcourt’s,” put in Manuel, promptly. “I saw guns pointed toward his heart. I saw those weapons fired. One would have thought that the cartridges were blank—”
“And to-day,” added Arilla, “I fired point-blank. My aim was perfect! My bullet did not even stop The Shadow’s laugh!”
Mocquino was glowering. Sayre, turning, saw the fearful expressions on the faces of the Voodoo Master’s minions. Harry and Stanton were looking on, elated. Sayre saw a chance for a conclusive statement.
“They are right, Mocquino,” expressed the physician. “Scientifically and from a medical standpoint, The Shadow is superhuman.”

And while this doesn’t fool Mocquino for more than a few minutes, there’s a wonderful moment where he’s definitely worried.

Anyhow: the plot therefore continues to a satisfactory climax, with another voodoo ritual upcoming and Harry Vincent and Stanton Wallace making guest appearances therein; with the police still officially and unofficially at a complete loss; and with The Shadow’s remaining agents also definitely worried about their chief’s physical ability to participate in the upcoming fight. 

(Mind you, Doctor Mocquino has now lost so many minions he can’t afford to post an outside guard. Heh.)

And so it goes.

I’m all out of things to say, but it’s one of the best. Even if the guy on the cover does look like he got stung by a bee.

The Shadow Magazine #14 – Hidden Death

An unexpected haul led me to begin my physical collection of The Shadow novels with Hidden Death, first published in 1932 and then reprinted in 1970, if you couldn’t tell by the swoopy block print.

As indicated, this is a very early Shadow story, and it has some iconic sequences, not to mention the very first appearance of the brisk, brusque, bull-headed Commissioner Ralph Weston and Commissioner Weston’s unique weakness for the theories of “crime experts.” There’s a mad scientist, murders on schedule, and what might be the first instance of gangdom waging all-out war against their greatest foe, united despite their standing feuds by the sinister rallying cry, “Death to The Shadow!”

So, great stuff, obviously.

As mentioned, this book begins with the introduction of Commissioner Weston, first seen grilling Joe Cardona on his seeming overreliance on hard evidence over theory to solve crimes….when in fact he, Cardona, relies heavily on the outlandish theory of a man in black appearing to give aid when needed and vanishing mysteriously afterwards! Why, it’s absurd! Weston demands that Cardona henceforth accept theories only from established experts, such as the his friend the eminent Professor Fredericks (and also stop following his own theories aka Joe’s celebrated “hunches.”) Anyhow, such is the state of affairs when Cardona produces a letter announcing the death of “S.H.”–“HE WAS THE FIRST.”

S. H. is soon discovered to be Silas Harshaw, an eccentric inventor who was having money troubles, somewhat related to his inability to surrender details of his plans to investors, but also partially related to being an eccentric crank. The fact that he was found shot to death inside a locked room on the tenth floor is negated by the presence of a large window, reachable by ladder from the lower floors. Cardona’s theories (and Professor Fredericks’) center on a burglary motive, possibly featuring Harshaw’s recently-discharged servant.

Except that the next intruder is found lying dead in the exact same spot, and detectives on guard report the escape of a dark-clad figure that went through their ranks like a hurricane. And then, forty-eight hours after the first death was discovered, another letter arrives, announcing the death of another set of initials: “HE WAS THE SECOND.” The corresponding death is soon discovered. And so it continues.

Poor Cardona is left with not a lot of facts and much theorizing to do. Who is posting the letters from the hotel when every postbox from the tenth floor down is being watched? Who is arranging these fiendish deaths? What could possibly be their connection? With even the Professorial expert stymied, it seems as though the police are powerless to find and stop these hidden deaths! Someone is on track to figure it all out, though….guess who.

The early Shadow spent a lot of time mixing it with street-level crime and this is no exception, albeit that the gangster angle is wrapped up in the middle of the novel and so eliminates an angle of mystery.  Still, there is an incredible sequence where the crooks make a bold and simple plan: to lure The Shadow into their hideout, a basement with one door off a blind alley with none…after first tipping off every gat-wielder and smoke-wagon toter in town to be there, waiting. Harry Vincent unwittingly sends his chief into a trap but is too late to warn him away! (Because, duh, Harry Vincent.) Danger lurks in every street corner and doorway! Death to The Shadow!

Except that, in an all-things-awesome reversal, The Shadow–simply by way of being cautious, stealthy, and the utterly fearless master of darkness–discovers the cordon, bypasses it without being spotted, and commences to shoot it out with not only the crooks he needs to question, but the entire army of the underworld as well when it comes barging in. And escapes (almost) unscathed with the information he wanted. Because he’s just. that. awesome. Any future movie adaptation is going to have to pick and choose between what elements from what books it wants to to adapt, as 1990s movie obviously did between the four Shiwan Khan stories. For my money, any adaptation worth its salt is going to need to include this scene. (I would also want the opening interview from Spoils of The Shadow.)

Obviously a lot of what The Shadow can do is informed by Walter B. Gibson’s background as a stage magician, and this is one of the stellar examples. The Shadow has a full bag of tricks to distract and mislead, including one that involves propping up his cloak and hat with extensible rods while crouching beneath them that would frankly be kind of terrifying if witnessed in real life. This being an earlier Shadow novel, he uses quite a few guises, and doesn’t solely rely on the Lamont Cranston identity, which is only used briefly. He remains an almost-unseen figure even to the forces of good that he aids (Commissioner Weston in particular remains stubbornly unconvinced as to his existence, even after having been held at gunpoint in this book by The Shadow. It’s to save his life, never mind.)

That being said, the Shadow also never shies away from boasting of his prowess and presence….and he always laughs last. The Black Falcon ends with the (dead) Falcon left hooded and jessed for the police to find just as a final F-U from The Shadow, who has to pause whilst making his escape in order to set it up. The Plot Master ends with the jet black king chessman standing supreme and alone over the cityscape chessboard, all other pieces fallen. Hidden Death, with its gloating letters celebrating the murders of innocent men, finds the fifth and final letter headed by a declaration in brilliant blue ink that vanishes before it can be read again: Annulled. By the Shadow.

Which also allows me to wrap up this review simply.

Rated: Approved. By Riders.

Frazettesque Friday – Voice of Death

The Shadow Magazine #192 – The Invincible Shiwan Khan

So….

I have thus far been highly and remarkably unimpressed with Shiwan Khan. In each of three outings so far, he’s had a predictable pattern: 1) arrive in New York, purpose: World Domination! 2) hypnotize white American girl into thinking she’s Chinese and serving as his messenger, 3) attempt to bribe, steal, or inveigle goods or services that, WITH YOUR LIMITLESS ORIENTAL WEALTH OF MYSTERIOUS ORIGINS YOU COULD VERY WELL HAVE LEGITIMATELY PURCHASED, HELLO, 4) get caught by The Shadow, 5) run away like a little bitch.

The pattern gets set in The Golden Master, Shiwan Khan’s first appearance, and I mentioned how underwhelming an antagonist he was there. It’s reinforced in Shiwan Khan Returns, the ending of which features the Kha Khan completely failing to accomplish anything except the manufacture and theft of a piecemeal helicopter, which he uses to, as previously indicated, run away with his tail between his legs. The pattern continues in The Invincible Shiwan Khan, although it does get switched up somewhat with the addition of Dr. Roy Tam and the likes of Vic Marquette. Shiwan Khan also switches tactics yet again from using flashing lights or even distinctive sounds as a method of mental resonance for contacting his victims. Now he uses…smells. Yeah, smells. Seriously.

Yes, Shiwan Khan–with his ability to telepathically overwhelm weak or unprepared minds–is personally dangerous. But when what he’s up against is The Shadow he’s also just….so damn outclassed. He’s rather pathetic and I’m not sure how this guy ended up as “The Shadow’s greatest archenemy.” I mean, aside from Walter B. Gibson hyping it up on purpose. It really doesn’t come across nearly so well when an author deliberately writes a character to be The Archenemy, honest-to-whiskers it’s gonna be so awesome when they meet next time!!!….as when it happens naturally. One feels that Doctor Moquino was a bit more of a natural case, because each time when he died, it was with an appropriate sense of “I shot him and he fell into a river, off an exploding barge,” or, “I shot him a bunch and left him inside an inescapable death maze of a house, which exploded.” And finally, “I shot him a bunch AND saw him fall down a bottomless fissure into a cavern that has no exits or way back up.” At least those deaths weren’t punctuated with breathlessly smug narrator informing us that Shiwan Khan would meet his fate! One of these days. Next volume. Somewhere along the road. Also, Doctor Moquino didn’t ever cut and run: he stayed to fight it out each time, which, y’know, I can respect.

All that being said, Shiwan Khan actually does manage to escape with his life, though this is not  particularly impressive (see: “like a little bitch”); and he does take a bunch of unwitting victims along with him. Part of this is lies with the fact that The Shadow of the 1940s is no longer the invincible, unknowable, alien figure of dread, bravura, and the night itself. Apparently, the editorial decision was made to tone him down and make him more….unimpressive. He still wields .45s, but now he largely “clips” thugs (Thuggees?) rather than dropping them; and that’s when he’s not just pistol-whipping them instead. His laugh tends to be more of a narrative device, not to mention a long-range communication method (no, seriously), than a genuine expression of challenging, or ironic, blood-thirsty, or ghoulish mirth.  Almost all of the clever/mastermind-level crooks have identified Lamont Cranston with The Shadow, even if they don’t really know the whole secret of that particular dual identity. And it takes him two whole minutes to wrestle a naljorpa into submission.

While The Shadow does outwit and outmaneuver Shiwan Khan at every step of the way (except the steps that involve not sending Harry Vincent to uncover vital information), he also misses his shot by a fraction of an inch due to (I am not making this up) the oriental fiend’s cunning construction of his new Throne Room as a slant-floored funfair-type crazy room. (That being said, an inferior Shadow is still superior to basically any other hero out there, because he still retains the essence of his character: knowing at least as much as the audience does, and pure, raw, undiluted will.)

Anyhow. Plot. 1) Shiwan Khan arrives back in New York, now styling himself Shiwan Tulku and while still employing what’s left of his Mongol horde, now also assisted by a gaggle of skeletal Tibetan naljorpas, mystics who have seen The Other Side and are now amply content to pass the veil of this life for the next. He intends on 2) stealing, not riches or weapons, but people this time. 3) Shiwan Khan hypnotically recruits Lana Luan (nee: Beatrice Chadbury, and yes, he takes the same frikking girl under control as his pawn again), to serve as a messenger. Which promptly leads to 4), because you do not mess with people whom The Shadow has rescued.

I mean, aside from Harry Vincent: professional rescuee.

Anyhow, 4) continues with The Shadow deftly outmaneuvering Shiwan Khan’s first attempt to eliminate him and also exposes him–and an inkling of his methods–to the New York City police. Commissioner Weston, once convinced, promptly calls in the FBI. The Shadow susses out Shiwan Khan’s new game–luring suitable disciples with the promise of their uttermost desires in Xanadu, a city the likes of which Shangri-La has got nothing on–and, while losing the requisite Random Mad Inventor, gets a bead on Lana Luan and a direct line to whatever Shiwan Khan’s next move is going to be.

Part of the reason Shiwan Khan is just, as mentioned, so damn outclassed is The Shadow’s organization. We’ve seen his agents–Moe, Hawkeye, Burbank, Cliff Marsland, Jericho Druke and (sigh) Harry Vincent–at work so many times before. We’ve seen them respond instantly to a low-toned whisper in the dark, seen them fling themselves into hopeless danger with only the trust in the mighty fighter who is their chief to rescue them, seen them lay down enfilade fire and rally to the mysterious blinks of a tiny, changing light. We know how well the team works, and here, they’re a well-oiled machine, amply aided by Dr. Roy Tam and his modernized Chinese-Americans. (Yat Soon, the Arbiter, one surmises, has been forgotten or perhaps has joined his ancestors.)

There’s also, because wouldn’t it come in useful if there was someone we could use as bait for the guy who likes to hypnotize beautiful women into thinking they’re Chinese and using them as minions, the linguistically-gifted Myra Reldon, an FBI asset. Myra has popped up before, generally with the alias of Ming Dwan and yellow-toned pancake makeup, in various ventures in which The Shadow plays a starring role. The adventures she experienced make her someone who responds instantly when a note arrives, written in fading ink and showing for a crest and signature the fleeting outline of a hawklike profile, topped with a broad slouch hat! (A previous volume shows that The Shadow producing the effect by twisting his hands together in a strange, supple fashion. Which, well. Okay, that is kind of cool. Do Deformed Rabbit now.)

Anyhow. Lana Luan is neutralized and Ming Dwan placed as a mole inside Shiwan Khan’s organization, The Shadow maps out the entire underground lair and the FBI is notified. Vic Marquette, who has worked with (for) The Shadow before, obeys implicitly. Dr. Roy Tam’s organization provides cover (dragons make everything awesome), and the countertrap is faultlessly sprung! However, since we are only at about 70% of the way through the novel, something is bound to go wrong and it promptly does with the aforementioned funhouse trick throne room and then, also, a firebomb.

And so on until we get to 5) which, dude, really….how can you say The Shadow–who had plenty of time to map out the entirety of the evil headquarters–seriously didn’t take thirty seconds more to stick his head inside the throne room itself? But anyhow, there’s also the matter of Harry Vincent still stuck aboard a yacht along with lots of other innocent (dumb) people who stopped to sniff the roses….

So it ends, rather frustratingly, with 6) the rather unenthusiastic promise that Shiwan Khan will return and This Time it’ll be the last one.

One would hope so, anyway.

Anyhow.

I don’t really feel like discussing how the 1990s movie pulled its ideas really heavily from the Shiwan Khan arc and this story in particular (there’s a phurba in this one, but it is actually given its deadly ability via a trick mummy case and a really skinny guy hiding in back…)

Rated: Fractions of an inch won’t cut it. Kill him already!

The Shadow Magazine #30 – The Death Giver

The earlier Shadow is much more a powerful figure of mystery and grandeur, not revealing his true face even to the audience, defeating his opponents coolly, rescuing innocents with swift and awesome competence. Yeah, that means mostly rescuing mostly Harry Vincent, but still…

Story-wise, with The Shadow still a relatively new figure in the underworld, underworld players have not quite yet figured out the correct or necessary countermeasures, i.e., overwhelming firepower, manpower, and muzzlepower. And–this may be an unintentionally brilliant writing strategy, too–the earlier years of The Shadow’s anti-crime reign of terror feature a lot more small-time evil masterminds than the later ones…possibly because The Shadow weeding out the smaller ones left room for the big guys to expand into. Doctor Moquino mentally enslaves wealthy socialites and manipulates them into voluntarily parting with their entire wealth. The Death Giver wants….one. million. dollars., and is none too organized about getting it.

So! Death has struck twice on a commuter train: random people, same place, same time, no suspects, and no detectible cause of death save for traces of poisons and traces of burns somehow occurring unobserved on a crowded morning train. The police are baffled. Commissioner Weston is no less baffled than Detective Joe Cardona, but his higher rank means that at least he has someone else to shove in front of the firing squad of public opinion when, as they inevitably do, the deaths keep coming.

Meanwhile we are introduced to a random millionaire businessman, who has been receiving mysterious notes on postcard. Deciphered, they are a death threat and a warning not to call the police. Except that he does, whereupon his crooked butler toggles a switch that makes his own telephone electrocute him. So now he’s dead and there’s no way to get one. million. dollars. out of him. (The Death Giver, as I have mentioned in previous reviews, is kind of unhinged and frankly also pathetic.) –especially as now The Shadow has sniffed out a new threat, and is on the trail. Except that the crooked butler, mad with terror both of the far-reaching grasp of his true master and the black-cloaked shape looming like Death itself actually in the room right now, snatches madly for what he thinks is a weapon given him by said master….and is promptly killed by it. Leaving no forward trail for The Shadow.

Whilst this thread has been unravelling, the Death Giver’s actually trusted lieutenant has scoped out another potential millionaire victim for the scheme of terror, threats, and eventual death. The Death Giver gives only one reward–whether they succeed or not. 

 And so it goes. 

(Another trick of the early books is that sometimes The Shadow never appears “on camera” at all.–later on, Gibson abandoned the idea, but he at first hinted that The Shadow’s true face was horribly disfigured to the point of not being there. In this book, he does appear to several characters, but his face remains hidden behind his high cloak collar and broad-brimmed hat. When he takes them off, he’s disguised as someone else. He does not use any of his established alter egos in this story, visit the Cobalt Club, or hang out with the Commissioner, either. It’s all business, darkness, vengeance, the gaping muzzle of an enormous automatic, and the trailing echoes of sardonic, ghoulish laughter.)

As mentioned, this is a book fairly light on minions (because they keep killing themselves off) and while there are no all-against-one gun battles or even The Shadow’s signature “leap into a crowd of thugs and start pistol-whipping them” tactic, there’s plenty of high stakes, fast movement, and stuff blowing up. This is one of the stories where The Shadow, ultimately, doesn’t really run into any genuine setbacks (bar having to rush to a location and pull Harry Vincent out of the blast zone), doesn’t make any mistakes, outmaneuvers the villains effortlessly, and, overall, hardly seems to exert himself.

And it’s still awesome, because Walter B. Gibson was just that clever. Gibson never fell into the trap of writing The Shadow as conveniently only slightly more powerful than his current batch of enemies. His power level, intelligence, and ferocity never varies. Sometimes the going is harder, because he’s up against someone with comparable intelligence, or comparable attack, or who can afford more than two minions at a time–and sometimes, well, it’s isn’t. The Shadow always throws himself fully into whatever he’s doing; he’s always fully engaged, always using his full power, mental and physical, to battle against evil.

And the evil always loses.

So the Death Giver himself, despite his evil lair with an agonized living corpse in a glass coffin set in the floor, and (in lieu of a trick floor, because, duh, I have my centerpiece there) trick ceiling, and also a pair of large black retainers, because what evil mastermind’s lair is complete without a couple of big guys just standing around, providing cannon fodder?–is unhinged, and, honestly, my reaction to this story was and remains “squidge him out like a bug.” He is, it transpires, a former chemist specializing in poison gases whose work was rejected by the American government, and who took that rejection very much to heart. Also, he needed money in a bad way. I’m not sure how these two circumstances lead to “imprisoning a man in the floor and starving / poisoning him to death slowly over months” but there you go.

The cover seems to show The Shadow’s agents, but I’m blowed if I can match who any of them are except Cliff Marsland on the right. I’m guessing that’s Burbank in the very back, because he takes after the chief in also liking to hide his face, but if the top hat guy is Rutledge Mann, he’s not chubby enough, and is the blond one Clyde Burke? So who is the second from the left dude?

Rated: I’m with the guy who stomps out criminals like the vermin they are.