Sunday, July 13, 2014

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Dime Detective, March 1938


DIME DETECTIVE certainly gave BLACK MASK a run for its money as the best of the hardboiled detective pulps. In this issue you've got Carroll John Daly's Race Williams, a classic story by Raymond Chandler, and a story by one of the top pulpsters, Frederick C. Davis. Plus a pretty distinctive cover, too. There's a good reason people collect DIME DETECTIVE.

5 comments:

Walker Martin said...

Great cover and I've owned several copies of this issue over the years. Now with Raymond Chandler and in decent condition it can bring upwards of a thousand dollars. Artist Rafael Desoto once told me you can't go wrong with skeletons and pretty girls on the cover.

Adventuresfantastic said...

While skeletons are cool, I say you can't go wrong with a pretty girl on the cover, period.

I've always been impressed with what I've read from Dime Detective. I wish I could afford some copies. Still, there are enough that have been reprinted that I can't complain too much.

Walker Martin said...

Keith is right about the reprints from DIME DETECTIVE. Altus Press has recently published several collections called The Dime Detective Library. Each volume reprints stories starring a series character like The Rambler, Mr. Maddox, The Marquis of Broadway, Keyhole Kerry, Inspector Allhoff, etc.

Todd Mason said...

And didn't DD, along with DIME MYSTERY, start as a shudder item, then markedly improve shortly thereafter as the Even Better source of hardboiled fiction once Ken White was editing it/them?

James Reasoner said...

The covers of the early issues of DIME DETECTIVE do have a Weird Menace look about them. It's hard to tell from the fiction listing in the FMI, lots of familiar names like Gardner, Daly, and Flynn.