Magic meets mystery as George Chance battles crime as the Green Ghost! Thrills, legerdemain, and suspense — all courtesy of the most extraordinary man-hunter the world has ever known!
When sudden death stalks, the Master of Illusion blazes a clever path to halt a ruthless, mysterious murder plot! Follow the exploits of George Chance, the Green Ghost, as he pursues a wily King of Crime!
In many ways, The Green Ghost was the standard pulp hero. Driven to fight crime, George Chance, a stage magician by trade and a criminologist by hobby, dons an eerie mask and goes after criminals and murderers under a scary name. He also, as many pulp types do, doesn’t fight this battle alone. Chance comes fully equipped with a supporting cast that is in many ways stereotypical to the pulp hero, but also stands out in some ways as well.
The fact that Chance’s secret identity is known to at least six people is rather unique in Pulp fiction. Usually the heroes who put on a mask may have one or two, sometimes even three people who know their true name, but not six. This adds to the more realistic feel, if such can be said for pulp stories, that the Green Ghost tales have. To carry on the crusade that George Chance undertakes would be nearly impossible for a man all on his own, so it only follows that he would have a group behind him, people who work behind the scenes and even contribute as much as he does when called on.
Obviously Commissioner Standish and Robert Demarest, being police commissioner and medical examiner, assist in the actual crime solving throughout the Green Ghost stories. Although it isn’t the first time a Commissioner has been, willingly or not, an assistant to a pulp hero, it is rather unique that the Medical Examiner is not only aware, but also complicit in this vigilante’s mission.
The Case of the Black Magician was originally published in the pages of The Green Ghost Detective magazine in the Summer of 1941 and is read with mysterious and magical force by Roger Price.
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: Stolen Evidence
Chapter 2: Murder Magic
Chapter 3: Call for the Green Ghost
Chapter 4: Trail of the Vanished
Chapter 5: The Green Ghost Acts
Chapter 6: The Haunted Rectory
Chapter 7: Man in a Black Mask
Chapter 8: The Steel Hook
Chapter 9: The Ledger
Chapter 10: Black Beard
Chapter 11: House of the Mystery Lady
Chapter 12: The Thing in the Flames
Chapter 13: Soapstone Immortal
Chapter 14: Back Track
Chapter 15: Gun Kill
Chapter 16: Hot Ice
Chapter 17: Enter the First Murderer
Chapter 18: Enter the Second Murderer
Chapter 19: Turnabout
Chapter 20: The Eyelash
