The Grove of Doom / The Masked Lady

The Shadow - Sanctum Reprints #14

by Walter B. Gibson

Pulp fiction's legendary Knight of Darkness returns in two of his most engrossing adventures. To solve the mystery of Chinatown smuggling, feuding families, and a series of strange disappearances, The Shadow must enter "The Grove of Doom", where those who enter never return. Then, Lamont Cranston and Inspector Cardona seek the truth behind a series of murders perpetrated by "The Masked Lady." This classic pulp collection showcases one of George Rozen's greatest covers, reproduced directly from the original art, restores more than 13,000 words deleted from previous reprintings of "The Grove of Doom," and includes all the original interior art by illustrators Tom Lovell and Edd Cartier and new commentary by popular culture historian Will Murray.

Genres: Pulp, Crime

128 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 2007

About the author

Walter Brown Gibson (September 12, 1897-December 6, 1985) was an American author and professional magician best known for his work on the pulp fiction character The Shadow. Gibson, under the pen-name Maxwell Grant, wrote "more than 300 novel-length" Shadow stories, writing up to "10,000 words a day" to satisfy public demand during the character's golden age in the 1930s and 1940s.

Reviews

[Doug Bolden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another collection of original The Shadow reprints? Yay! Two of author's Walter Gibson's personal favorites? HURRAY! The first of which involves a Chinatown mystery? Hmmm.

And thus we come to perhaps the single whitest line that I have ever written in one of my reviews, Space Pilgrims: As long as you don't mind the racism, The Grove of Doom is quite good.*

It is good. It's sort of different from The Shadow's normal fare but not so different as to feel out of place. A family with a fairly prosaically complicated past (basically, folks had some historic personal squabbles and there's a sizable estate to inherit linked to these squabbles) eventually become involved with strange disappearances into "The Grove of Doom" [visualization is sort of hard, throughout, in that a birch grove of not immense size is nevertheless effective as a killing ground within a short distance of two houses and a popular golf course...just roll with it]. The best part about this novel is how well the lower-bourgeoise squabblings work as a background plot. It is simple enough to grasp without too much thought and meaty enough to justify some hooks. It reads as something like a New Englander's take on Southern Gothic literature mushed with some penny dreadful elements. It also benefits that while the reader understands some of what is happening, there are a few twists and turns to be explored as to exactly how and why everything is happening.

As for the second story, The Masked Lady, my feelings are more mixed. It's also sort of different from the usual The Shadow formula (but, like the first one, not too different). The real change, that the criminal mastermind at the center of the mystery may in fact be anything but and actually be something of a victim, is ultimately wasted on this story where very little is done to make the eponymous masked lady (whose identity the reader is let in on really early) anything like properly sympathetic and her actions anything like interesting. There are a dozen ways this road could have been mapped out and the way that Gibson chose is adequate, but seems like one of the least satisfying paths to take. It becomes obvious that there has to be twists within the twist (and there are) because otherwise it barely would have been a story justifying having The Shadow at all.

At least there are plenty of gun fights and night clubs to keep the reader entertained (and the "choreography" of the fights are a bit better than usual, though some of the locational details are a bit murky). Perhaps most fun for this one, "Lamont Cranston" [aka The Shadow in norm-drag] takes a fairly large role in proceedings, justifying the double-identity a fair bit. There is just nothing like the gothic charm of the first story to help the reader truly enjoy this one.

The supplemental essays are fair. The one that goes into more detail about Orson Welles and his part to play with the radio show version is by far the more interesting. The inclusion of a "lost" script is also nice.


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* Now you may be asking, "Doug, you are reading 1930s pulp fiction...why are you complaining about racist overtones?" and I feel this requires a degree of explanation, because I feel it hints at something behind the scenes. The very first piece of dialogue in the first novel, The Grove of Doom, is this...

"You have come, Lei Chang," he said.

"I tellee you I come," responded Lei Chang. "I bringee him likee you say. Him velly good, him Master. Him we callee Koon Woon."

Here's the thing, after this first scene, neither Chang nor the novel's other Chinese character speak in anything like over-the-top piglin (well, outside of saying "Koon Woon" a lot, Chang barely has any other lines). This gives that first burst of dialogue a mechanical feel, one either added in by Gibson in an attempt to be funny or was forced in by an editor for similar purposes. This ultimately exposes it as racist-joke-for-racist-joke's-sake, something that could have been easily avoided by just not saying anything at all.

[J.L. Rallios · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two great Shadow novels. In The Grove of Doom The Shadow battles crooks and a hidden enemy within a grove where no one but The Shadow can enter and survive (okay, there was another character who did). In The Masked Lady, nothing is at it seems and the action is great and the tone is a little lighter than in other Shadow mysteries. Both great reads.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Containing author Walter Gibson's two favorite Shadow novels, both of these stories represent something of a change of pace. Grove of Doom is almost a tale of domestic murder and revenge, even though it has the trademark Shadow weirdness twisted all the way through. And The Masked Lady is similarly about family trying to take care of its own.

By eschewing the more common Shadow vs mobsters or a supervillain formula, Gibson proves once again why his Shadow novels have continued to be popular with pulp fans almost 70 years after their publication, while countless other pulp heroes have faded into obscurity. While fellow hero Doc Savage--written by Lester Dent--may have enjoyed greater popularity as paperback reprints, I think Gibson is a far superior writer.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

First book of 2012 is this early exploit of The Shadow. Even though I twigged the identity of the villain early, the climax came as a pleasant surprise. It's better than Six Men of Evil, another early tale from a previous Sanctum/Nostalgia reprint volume, which was written by Gibson after this story.

I'm finding the mix of unexpected endings and plots that still leave me surprised make the best tales. So call this well worth the time.

Finished the second half of the double volume earlier this evening. Pretty straightforward mystery, most notable for how the police worked with The Shadow rather than trying to apprehend him. The mystery offered some unexpected layers.