It's 1936, just three years prior
to World War 2. Franklin D. Roosevelt had just won the presidency in an
historic landslide reelection, the Hoover Dam officially reached completion,
the Baseball Hall of Fame had just been founded, and it was the year Life
magazine debuted. It was also the age of the rise of Masked Men in the U.S.
Long before the dawn of the age of Superheroes, Masked Men were on the rise in
American Pop Culture literature arising out of the Pulp Noir of the depression
era these iconic, fedora-and-trench-coat-wearing vigilantes populated radio
serial broadcasts, film, and pulp novels. Characters like The Clock, The
Spirit, The Shadow were the heroes of the day.
While these characters have
largely faded into the past, authors like Will Murray are doing what they can
to keep them alive. William Murray is an American novelist, journalist, short
story, and comicbook writer. He has spent years penning stories about Tarzan,
Doc Savage, Sherlock Holmes, and H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu among others. And
then, in 1991 along with artist Steve Ditko (co-creator of Spider-Man, and Dr.
Strange), he co-created the superhero, Squirrel Girl.
His latest novel, Secret
Agent X vs. Doctor Death pits one of these Masked Men. Secret
Agent X was the title of a U.S. pulp magazine published by A. A. Wyn’s
Ace Magazines, as well as the name of the main character featured in the
magazine. The magazine ran for 41 issues between February 1934 and March 1939. Doctor
Death was also the title of a short-lived pulp magazine from 1935, this
one published by Dell Magazines, as well as the name of the magazine’s main
character. Unlike Secret Agent X wo was a hero, Doctor Death, as his name
implies, was an archcriminal who wanted to return the world to a primitive
condition and used supernatural tools such as zombies and magic in his plots
against humanity.
In Murray’s 2026 novel, even
though the world believes Doctor Death is deceased, the clinically insane
super-scientist and occultist still lives, and is still quite determined to drag
civilization back into the Dark Ages utilizing all of his skills in the dark
arts of the occult. The reason the world believes Dr. Death to be dead, is that
a secret society of select individuals—calling themselves the Secret Twelve—are
convinced that they have put him down for the count. Unfortunately, they are
not only sadly mistaken but currently disbanded as the novel begins, one of the
twelve—Tony Caminetti, a self-styled king of the underworld—turns up dead,
seemingly killed by his own hand.
The mystery deepens when, upon
investigation by the local police, it becomes clear that first impressions of
the apparent suicide weren’t quite as they seemed, and there were unexplained,
mysterious elements that added new layers to the events. As the story
progresses, we learn that one of the “cops” that were involved was actually
Secret Agent X in disguise, and that it was a still alive Dr. Death who was
somehow behind Caminetti’s death. Afterwards, other members of the disbanded
Secret Twelve, originally organized to defeat Death, also began succumbing to
violent, malevolent forces not of this world, and dying horribly. The Authorities
suspected that the former Professor Rance Mandarin—Dr. Death—was still alive
and was scheming to remake the world in his twisted image.
Fortunately, rising to meet the
challenge was the Man of a Thousand Faces, known yet unknown as Secret Agent X.
needless to say the man of mystery had never before faced a foe possessing
supernatural powers, and as malevolent as Dr. Death, a man who controlled
zombies, and other terrifying creatures of the night. To do the job, X recruits
a new team of masked men to bring down Death.
If you never read any Pulp Noir
fiction you are in for a treat upon reading Murray’s very amazingly purple
prose, which so clearly mimics the type of writing from that era you would
swear that he is somehow channeling the ghosts of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond
Chandler, Mickey Spillane, and others. Murray’s style is to use very stylized
language to weave his very complex and highly descriptive stories. Reading a
Will Murray tale is truly a delightful experience, as he has a very unique way
with words.
The story crisscrosses in an out of
numerous scenarios with a wide array of very colorful characters each with
their own unique characteristics, mannerisms, and eccentricities. The story
itself intertwines in and out of several exotic scenarios as X and his team
track down Dr. Death even as Death himself and his various minions including
the haughty Egyptian, temptress Charmion, as well as his zombies, vampire bats,
Minotaurs, and other creatures of legend. The story is exceptionally compelling
and holds your interest from over to cover, delivering riveting action, layered
storytelling, and thrills galore as you wind your way through the intriguing
plot.
The book is currently available on
Amazon.
The world isn’t quite what we
think it is. At least according to Paul Kupperberg’s new novella, A
Clockwork God. In his book, he postulates a world where all of the
various gods from all of the multitude of pantheons return to earth to set up
shop, and rule over whatever part of the Earth that they have chosen as theirs.
And now, 20 years have passed since their return, and someone is killing them.
Meanwhile the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is nowhere to be seen. Hence, positioning
him as a “clockwork god”—that is to say, a god who set the world in motion, and
then simply walked away from it allowing it to run on its own.
