Talking Toad: The Complete Adventures of the Gadget Man, Volume 1

by Lester Dent, Will Murray (Introduction)

During his thirty year career, Lester Dent created several outstanding characters, starting with the immortal Doc Savage, but also including Black Mask's Oscar Sail, Genius Jones, and others. One of the most successful was the Gadget Man, who appeared exclusively in the pages of Street & Smith's Crime Busters magazine between 1937 and 1939. After Doc Savage, the Gadget Man was the longest running Lester Dent series. And, like Doc Savage, it was a mixture of gadgets, mystery and screwball shenanigans. Click Rush is an inventor. But the ingenious crime-fighting gadgets he's invented are not wanted by police agencies, who consider them too outlandish and impractical. Enter Bufa. Who is Bufa? No one knows. Not even Rush. But when a papier-mâché radio transceiver appears in his hotel room sitting on one half of a $10,000 bill and the voice emanating from the toad promises the other half if Rush uses his gadgets to solve a crime, the nearly broke inventor could hardly say no. The problem was that every time Rush solves a mystery, Bufa wants him to do it again. And again, and again. And he won't take no for an answer! Over the course of eighteen screwy stories, the war of wits between the anonymous toad-shaped tormentor and the beleaguered inventor-turned-detective rages. Where will it all end? Not even Bufa knows.... This first volume of Gadget Man stories-most never before reprinted-includes the introductory six stories. Many restored from the original manuscripts. Including a revealing Introduction by Will Murray.

Genres: Mystery

244 pages, Paperback

Published July 9, 2023

About the author

Lester Dent (1904–1959) was born in La Plata, Missouri. In his mid-twenties, he began publishing pulp fiction stories, and moved to New York City, where he developed the successful Doc Savage Magazine with Henry Ralston, head of Street and Smith, a leading pulp publisher. The magazine ran from 1933 until 1949 and included 181 novel-length stories, of which Dent wrote the vast majority under the house name Kenneth Robeson. He also published mystery novels in a variety of genres, including the Chance Molloy series about a self-made airline owner. Dent’s own life was quite adventurous; he prospected for gold in the Southwest, lived aboard a schooner for a few years, hunted treasure in the Caribbean, launched an aerial photography company, and was a member of the Explorer’s Club.

Reviews

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clickell Rush is an inventor who wants to sell his tech (exploding cigarettes, anesthetic-gas bombs, radio trackers) to law enforcement. Law enforcement isn't interested but "Bufa" is. Communicating through a radio hidden in a toad figure, Bufa pushes Click to investigate various crimes, at a price of $10,000 a job. When Click decides he's had enough, well, Bufa forces him to reconsider.
Despite all the gadgets, these whimsical tales are much more well, realistic, than Doc Savage or Dent's early-1930s PIs such as the Blond Adder and Foster Fade. That fits — Doc Savage was toning down the superheroics — but I must admit I prefer Dent's earlier, wilder work. These stories are fun and if I didn't have expectations based on Dent's other work, I'd like them better.
Another place this suffers is that most of Dent's other series include extremely capable women. The women in these stories are just standard PI-genre eye candy.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This a fun collection of the first six of Lester Dent's "Gadget Man" stories from the Pulps. Dent, of course, is most famous for creating Doc Savage. The Gadget Man is Clickell Rush. He's an inventor, and a sort of detective working for a nameless, faceless boss who communicates via a two way radio system via a paper mache toad (you read that correctly). He also gets paid 10K a case, which is BIG money in 1938. Zany, pulpy amusements. Literature? No. Change the way you think? No. Entertaining glimpse into the past? Yes.

[Travis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A young inventor is coerced into solving crimes by a mysterious voice that speaks through a large model of a toad and the promise of ten thousand dollars.
A fun collection of screwball mysteries, brought to you by the writer known for the majority of Doc Savage novels.

You don't want to read them all in a row, as they can be formulaic, but the mysteries are so odd, as are the characters, you rarely get bored.
It's equal parts Rex Stout and PG Wodehouse.

Our hero is likable, capable without seeming like a super hero, is either annoyed by the attractive damsels or has no luck when he chats them up.

A fun time waster.