2012
First Published
4.27
Average Rating
396
Number of Pages
Frederick Nebel's unforgettable character Jack Cardigan was one of the main reasons behind the success of the legendary Dime Detective Magazine. His hard-boiled P.I. stories were a major influence to other writers of the era, yet only a handful have been reprinted since their original 44-story run eighty years ago. Volume 1 of this series contains the first 11 installments, complete and uncut, with an all-new introduction by Will Murray and the original illustrations by John Fleming Gould. "Death Alley (November, 1931)," "Hell's Pay Check (December, 1931)," "Six Diamonds and a Dick (January, 1932)," "And There Was Murder (February, 1932)," "Phantom Fingers (March, 1932)," "Murder on the Loose (April, 1932)," "Rogues' Ransom (August, 1932)," "Lead Pearls (September, 1932," "The Dead Don't Die (October, 1932)," "The Candy Killer (November, 1932)," and "A Truck-Load of Diamonds (December, 1932)."
Avg Rating
4.27
Number of Ratings
22
5 STARS
36%
4 STARS
55%
3 STARS
9%
2 STARS
0%
1 STARS
0%
goodreads
Author
Frederick Nebel
Author · 3 books
Largely self-educated, Frederick Lewis Nebel was sent to live with his grandfather in northern Canada in order to escape the 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic ravaging New York City. There he soaked up Canadian pioneer history, which he'd draw upon in the 1920s writing for the pulp, "Northwest Stories", which is where he'd score his initial success as an author. Nebel spent his early adulthood working his way across the Atlantic and Europe as a merchant seaman. In Paris, he'd met his future wife, Dorothy and together they wandered back stateside and the couple took up residence in St. Louis, Missouri where Nebel began his writing career in earnest. After his first successful sales to "Northwest Stories", he branched out to other burgeoning pulp publishers, writing effectively across several genres. Aside from "Northwest Stories", Nebel scored big with "Black Mask" in 1926. Its legendary publisher Joe 'Cap' Shaw promoted Nebel as its first star author, probably in an effort to upgrade the image of the 6-year old magazine, which he felt was hindered by the almost inexplicable popularity of the mindless writing of Caroll J. Daly. Nebel's characters were denizens of Richmond City; police captain Steve MacBride and a sometime acrimoniously-teamed local news reporter simply named Kennedy. Nebel burned through 37 actioned-packed stories that were among the most popular entries in the magazine. Nebel went on to create another memorable hard-nosed character, Donny Donahue that Shaw promoted as a replacement from the high-profile loss of Dashiell Hammett. Donny Donahue, a private dick from the Interstate Detective Agency debuted in 1930 and kept readers happy over the next 3 years. Although Nebel has several film credits, he maintained a very negative view of Hollywood. He would often cite examples of how the studios chewed up his colleagues. Nebel would license the film rights to his stories (most famously Torchy Blaine) to the highest bidder, steadfastly declining to write the screenplays. In later years he discontinued writing crime stories altogether, shifting to romance stories for the women's magazine market. Plagued with health problems in his 50s his writing ground to a premature stop. He died in 1967.
