The cameras are set, the scene has already been rehearsed; "Shoot!" the director says. . . . What happens is stark tragedy-not of the movie, play-acting variety, but like a chapter out of the deeper drama of life itself.

The famous "weird menace" pulp magazines of the 1930s and 1940s are among the rarest and most sought-after publications by collectors. The "Spicy" magazines -- which included Spicy Mystery, Spicy Adventure, Spicy Detective, and others -- published a titilating mix of fantasy, horror, mystery, and suspense, punctuated by episodes of torture, sadism, sex, and other risque elements. Although tame by current standards, and sometimes of dubious literary merit, these publications presented tales which thrilled a sensation-hungry audience. Despite the themes and constraints of the market, writers who would later become famous -- including Hugh B. Cave, E. Hoffman Price, Robert Leslie Bellem, and many more -- were frequent contributors. The February 1937 issue features Bellem, Hugh Speer, Justin Case (Hugh B. Cave), and many others -- plus all the classic "spicy" artwork!

PERIL PRESS presents: Spicy Detective Stories, November 1935 Dan Turner Hollywood Detective BEYOND JUSTICE by Robert Leslie Bellem Dan Turner judges a beauty contest—and things happen! Was the girl's murder an act of vengeance—or a dead man's legacy to love? 5700 Words Dan Turner—Hollywood Detective, December, 1942 BROKEN MELODY by Robert Leslie Bellem Nothing scalds Dan Turner so much as a threatening note. When there's geetus in a case, and when there's a little songbird like Chiquita in the picture, nobody's going to tell Dan to layoff, and get away with it! 5100 Words Dan Turner—Hollywood Detective, January 1942 MILLION BUCK SNATCH by Robert Leslie Bellem Guns roared in Chinatown. The police took it calmly. "Another tong war," they said. But Hollywood's super-sleuth Dan Turner was always a doubter. Wouldn't it seem more reasonable that somebody had deliberately shot at the girl to keep her from tipping anyone off about the kidnapping? 5600 Words Dan Turner—Hollywood Detective, December 1942 DAUGHTER OF MURDER by Robert Leslie Bellem There are some things a daughter ought to know about her own mother—including how she died. Dan had some doubts about both would-be heiresses, but no doubt about which one wanted to kill him! 5400 Words Spicy Detective, October 1935 Dan Turner Hollywood Detective DEATH'S BRIGHT HALO by Robert Leslie Bellem Those necklaces were as effective as a headman's axe. To pierce their secret Dan Turner finds his way into the house of missing girls. 6200 Words Spicy Detective, September 1936 FALLING STAR by Robert Leslie Bellem It was the dizziest looking diamond ring Dan Turner had ever seen—and a girl was giving it to him to keep . . . handing him plenty of Hollywood trouble on a platter. 5500 Words Dan Turner—Hollywood Detective, February 1943 FEATURE SNATCH by Robert Leslie Bellem The idea was new—and was tops! Whoever thought of stealing a million dollar production before it was released? And behind it was the ransom angle, and there was blackmail, too. Sometimes a detective likes to get his teeth into a case like that. It's like matching your wits with a genius. 6400 Words Hollywood Detective, July 1945 THE DEAD DON'T DREAM by Robert Leslie Bellem What was the grim mystery in this disappearance of the fat gag writer's cousin? Hollywood's ace gumshoe, Dan Turner, had to meet and combat a heap of rough to-do before he neared finish. 8600 Words This edition includes 30 images between sexy story illustrations and steamy pulp covers, plus a GALLERY of 10 enticing Pulp covers from issues that feature stories by Robert Leslie Bellem and his aliases.

"Sally the Sleuth is a reprint of a 1930s comic first appearing in pulp novels which were primarily sexual escapades. It was later transformed into a non-sexual crime comic series in the 1950s."--

Follow-up to the Edgar Award-nominated Gun in Cheek further celebrates neglected classics of substandard mystery writing, uncovering even more twisted treasures for connoisseurs of hideous prose.

This volume of Wildside Press's best-selling MEGAPACK® series focuses on tales first published in the "Spice" line of pulp magazines. Here are 25 mystery tales considered quite titillating in their day, but mild by modern standards.

Provides encyclopedic coverage of female sexuality in 1940s popular culture. Popular culture in the 1940s is organized as patriarchal theater. Men gaze upon, evaluate, and coerce women, who are obliged in their turn to put themselves on sexual display. In such a thoroughly patriarchal society, what happens to female sexual desire? Wolf-Women and Phantom Ladies unearths this female desire by conducting a panoramic survey of 1940s culture that analyzes popular novels, daytime radio serials, magazines and magazine fiction, marital textbooks, Hollywood and educational films, jungle comics, and popular music. In addition to popular works, Steven Dillon discusses many lesser-known texts and artists, including Ella Mae Morse, a key figure in the founding of Capitol Records, and Lisa Ben, creator of the first lesbian magazine in the United States. “This exciting book presents a truly capacious understanding of US culture and offers a spectacular array of analyses of how the decade’s cultural discourse struggled to define female desire and how so much male literature and filmmaking sought to constrain it. Dillon’s study will teach scholars of modern American literature and culture a great deal more about the 1940s than they already know or think they know. It is a brilliant addition to the field.” — Gordon Hutner, author of What America Read: Taste, Class, and the Novel, 1920–1960