by Robert Wallace (Laurence Donovan)
Phantom Detective #102 8/1941
The Phantom inflitrates a mystery island where all the residents have the last name of Smith, looking for a missing person and the secret of the Devil's Fire, a fireball that completely incinerates its victims.
According to the introduction by Will Murray, this was one of the stories that moved the Phantom towards a more Doc Savage style of pulp hero, but there's still more detection than action here. The first two thirds or so have the standard sneaking around in disguise, being captured, escaping, being rescued, etc, from the more action oriented pulps.
I wasn't in the right frame of mind to deal with the last part, which was some kind of long, drawn out reveal of a not-very-fair play mystery. It's like we get the reveal, then the clues, and then we're told what the mystery was in the first place.
No comments:
Post a Comment