Mystery and Crime Various: Ten Detective Aces Sampler 7. V1. 10 Mar 2012

[crutledge]

(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.

ABRA CADAVER!—ROBERT TURNER

Spad Moran needed a girl for a dangerous job. He had to save one from the grave before she would take the position. But Spud found the only way he could make worth her while was by standing in front of the murder gun for her.

PEOPLE IN GLASS TOMBSTONES—NORMAN A. DANIELS

Too late Hale realized he’d struck a bad bargain when he bought the executed killer Cady’s mansion of doom. For it began to look as though the grave was no barrier to Cady’s macabre hobby in life—mixing mirth and murder.

CRIME GETS A HEAD—MILTON T. LAMB

Private Detective Smith found more than he’d expected when he investigated the Droyster suicide. For Smith found that though the ex-millionaire had lost his only face in that shotgun blast, he’d gained a second torso.

DR. HECKLE AND MR. HIDE—JOE ARCHIBALD

A double-identity radio writer pounded a spot ditty which put him on a deadly spot. And when Iron Jaw O’Shaughnessy snagged a sure suspect, Snooty Piper knew justice had joggled the mike. So the rummy reporter followed a trail of radio jingles to put the jangle of handcuffs on a windpipe warper.

HOT-SEAT FALL GUY—E. Z. ELBERG

When Peanut Smith went to the hot-seat, he made Mike Powers the executor of his will. And that will would make Mike his own executioner, for the death-house legacy was— the Chair.

OUR HOST - THE GHOST—NORMAN A. DANIELS

Detective Bill Duffy took that suspect to the murdered man’s house for identification. Duffy knew the strange legends that haunted the eerie place. But the detective never expected that the third degree would be given by the victim’s ghost.

ROLL OUT THE COFFIN—WILLIAM ROUGH

The only thing that 4F bartender, Feetsy, could do well was to throw darts. And the Army figured a bombardier was better than any beer hall sharpshooter. But the time came when all that Uncle Sam could use to pin back Hitler’s ears was Feetsy’s feathered needles—and Feetsy was on the lam.

ROCK-A-BYE BOOBY—RICHARD BRISTER

When Carmody sought to find the secret of that old man's second childhood, he learned how quickly the cradle can lead to the grave.

CYANIDE SURTAX—NORMAN A. DANIELS

Though Prescott Hudson, the income tax collector, was poison to many men, he proved to be an antidote to the corpse with a . . . Cyanide Surtax

.

DOWNED ON THE FARM—JOE ARCHIBALD

With a Jackknife slayer on the Beantown griddle, Snooty and Scoop, the cracked eggs of newsdom, beat it up to Buckwheat, Maine, to put the heat on a home-fried suspect.