(Detective-)Dragnet Magazine/Ten Detective Aces
Ten Detective Aces was probably the most successful of the many magazines that Harold Hersey launched, and certainly one of the longest running, but it took a while to find its mark. For the first 16 issues (to April 1930) it was called The Dragnet Magazine and initially focussed on stories about gangsters and organised crime. However, by 1930 public interest in gangsters was fading and the magazine became more of a detective pulp, initially (for 24 issues) under the hybrid name Detective-Dragnet Magazine and then finally, from March 1933, under the name Ten Detective Aces under which it ran for an impressive 16 years.
A Canadian reprint edition of Ten Detective Aces ran briefly in the 1930s as a direct reprint of the US edition, and then throughout the 1940s typically reprinting a US issue from 9-12 months previously. There was also an abridged British reprint edition under the "abridged" title of Detective Aces.
COFFIN CUSTOMER—H.Q. MANSUR
Detective Ed Travis had to cash in on bargain booty to keep his client from becoming a . . . .Coffin Customer.
KAYO ON MURDER—ALBERT G. ROBINSON
Shane Peters, ex-heavyweight champ, had to pull a last-round murder kayo. For his prizefight client was being groomed by the Big Timekeeper as the feature attraction in a Death House semi-final.
TAKEN FOR A BRIDE—JOE ARCHIBALD
The bride is gone—And the groom is glum,—And Snooty gets ripe—For a pistol plum.
MURDER-NOW PLAYING—ROBERT TURNER
When his girl was yanked away from the footlights and into a death-house, Detective Pete Putnam wrote a last-act script—with a killer in the feature role.
CRIMSON SHROUD—WALTER ROEBER SCHMIDT
Detective Hugh Carey’s vacation turned into a corpse cruise. And his white jacket became a . . . .
PARADE OF THE WOODEN KIMONOS—EMILE C. TEPPERMAN
In the dead of night Marty Quade was awakened—by two guns trained on his head. Marty was about to be shot for being involved in a case he hadn’t heard of—yet. But Marty was in too much of a hurry to die just then, so he composed a bullet rhapsody—for a corpse parade.
THE PHANTOM WITNESS—CLARK FROST
D. A. Mathew Sturgeon was all primed to step into the governor’s shoes. But Fate suddenly made him prosecute for murder the only witness to his own gun-laden youth
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SLIP SERVICE—JOE ARCHIBALD
When a chopper made mincemeat out of Honest Eddie Grub— the Robin Hood of Roxbury—those two screwball newshawks, Snooty and Scoop, stirred up a hot-seat concoction.
CRASH SCAVENGERS—GEORGE ARMIN SHAFTEL
Gravity Ghouls they were called. For when a plane crashed they were Johnny-on-the-spot to the wreckage. Now a mysterious call notified them of a crack-up before it happened.
HOW GREEN WAS MY VALET!—JOE ARCHIBALD
Snooty Piper and Scoop Binney, those two newshawk scalawags, came face to face with nobility—on a slab. But Snooty, nothing if not democratic, began to oil up the throne in the state palace—for the crowning event of a blue blood career