Terror, Inc.

Complete Stories of Lester Dent

by Lester Dent, Will Murray (Introduction), Norman Saunders (Cover_design)

Fear-wrapped tale of detection from the author of Doc Savage!
When a series of gruesome corpses is discovered entombed in its freshly-paved streets, a city is cloaked in a bloody shroud of terror ....
All Hollywood lives in dread as The Spark, a mysterious super-villain, launches a killing spree using inexplicable methods ....
A metropolis is invaded by an unstoppable invisible horde of ruthless killers bent on domination ....
These are but three of the six novel-length weird mysteries included in the pages of this volume of the Lester Dent Library.

Stories:
Terror, Inc.: from Detective-Dragnet Magazine May 1932
The Devil's Cargo: from Detective-Dragnet Magazine July 1932
The Invisible Horde: from Detective-Dragnet Magazine Sept 1932
The Whistling Death: from Ten Detective Aces March 1933
The Cavern of Heads: from Ten Detective Aces April 1933
Murder Street: from Ten Detective Aces May-June 1933

210 pages, Paperback

First published November 26, 2013

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

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very nice fast paced pulp action stories. Entertaining read

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Men reduced to skeletons if they don't pay the mysterious Spark. Corpses that bled to death through their pores. Invisible killers. A set of wild pulp stories by Lester Dent, better known as the author of the Doc Savage series, here featuring extremely capable PIs (and some capable women sidekicks) pitted against bizarre menaces. Fun stuff.

[Ralph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lester Dent is, of course, most associated with the pulpish adventures of superhuman adventurer Doc Savage, the so-called Man of Bronze. Prior to that (and even after) Dent was a prolific author in a variety of pulp genres, slaving away at a penny-a-word. In "Terror, Inc" are collected six of his "weird mysteries," all novel length by the standards of the pulp magazines, all but one worthy of the magazines' covers, which are reproduced at the end of this book, along with the interior line illustrations; rounding out the presentation is a short biography by Will Murray, pulp historian and himself a writer of great pulp-flavored tales.

Those who are familiar with Dent's Doc Savage yarns with find similarities in these otherworldly action mysteries in terms of themes, characters, names, narrative, gimmicks and resolutions. They are also indebted somewhat to the serial films of the times in pacing and theme, and any one of these could have been turned into a cracking good chapterplay by Universal or any of the serial factories down on Poverty Row.

Though these mysteries are described as "weird" you will not find any ghosts or ghouls, no demons risen up from Hell, or warlocks using arcane potions. No matter how outre the events or spectral the nemesis, it always comes down to evil science or clever criminals. By sticking to the possible (even if highly implausible) Dent makes full use of the febrile imagination that made the Doc Savage tales rise above their relatively mundane competition.

Dent's narrative style in these stories has much in common with the machine guns that some of his antagonists utilize in the sense that they shot hot and fast, his sentences almost echoing the staccato rattle of a tommy-gun. Instead of spraying randomly, however, Dent uses his lexicon as a sniper might, with each bullet not just hitting the target but scoring a bulls-eye. He also uses verbs in odd and evocative ways to establish mood and suspense.

This book will be of general interest to readers who are fans of pulp fiction, especially those who like their mysteries rife with action, highly engaging, and extremely imaginative. This collection is a must-have for fans of Lester Dent or Doc Savage, for in reading it they might form a greater understanding of and appreciation for those later adventures.