Mystery and Crime Various: Private Detective Stories Sampler. V1. 26 Jan 2012

[crutledge]

Private Detective (Stories)
Private Detective Stories appeared in mid-1937, about three years after the first of the spicy magazine lines - Spicy Detective - and came from the same publisher - Trojan Publishing. The magazines were much the same - it has been said that "Private Detective Stories was Spicy Detective with less decorative covers and some, but not much, of the psychopathology left out". It ran for 134 issues over a period of 13 years, in the latter months adding two comic strips to the mix and dropping the word "Stories" from the title.
There were at least 9 issues of a British reprint edition. There was also a Canadian magazine of the same name although it had no direct relationship to the Trojan magazine. Some issues are direct reprints from that magazine, while other reprints stories from magazines such as Detective Yarns, Double-Action Gang, Hooded Detective and Crack Detective.

MILLION DOLLAR BABY—ARTHUR WALLACE

“I’m not a criminal!” she insisted. “I’m free, white and—and close to twenty-one! I’ll give you a hundred dollars to stop following me.” I should have listened to her, for she had murder in her green eyes. But I played it like a chump—and I took the consequences!

BEFORE ELECTION—WARD AINSWORTH

The girl Custer had been hired to guard was killed almost under his very eyes. On top of that, Custer had withheld vital facts from the police. Now, unless he could find that other girl, Custer was behind the eight ball.

MURDER BACKSTAGE—ROGER TORREY

Rawlin had been on the stage once, but he’d given up all that to become a private detective. In his acting days, women had been his chief weakness; and right now, the murder that confronted him was causing him no more trouble than the girls in the chorus!

MODELS FOR MURDER—W. T. BALLARD

What grim motive was behind the terroristic frightening of those beautiful New York models, and behind the murder that accompanied it? I, Austin Gardner, had two dangerous reasons for wanting to find out . . . .