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The Shadow Pulp #15
Green Eyes
There is a criminal empire being run by a mad genius out of San Francisco's Chinatown. Nobody knows who they are or when they will strike again. Only one man can bring down the vicious criminal operations. The Shadow!
158 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1932
60 people want to read
About the author
Maxwell Grant
652 books32 followersMaxwell Grant was a pseudonym often used by Walter B. Gibson to write stories of "The Shadow".
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 28, 2020
Imprinting: when a "young animal fixes its attention on the first object with which it has visual, auditory, or tactile experience and thereafter follows that object." To stretch a tenuous thought a little further: I wonder if that is what happened to me? Good friends know I love the heroic pulps of the 30's and 40's. The first pulp I read was a Doc Savage adventure and I was hooked. Doc became the gold standard by which all others would be judged. Would things (and would I) be the same if I had first read a pulp featuring The Shadow instead? Doc and The Shadow seem to be different animals. Doc is (albeit inconsistently) opposed to taking lives, while Philip Jose Farmer described The Shadow by saying The Master of Darkness believed the only good crook was a dead crook-and he made sure the streets of NY were littered with good crooks. But they are both actually really skilled at ignoring the constitutional rights of those who oppose them-and Doc has a law degree! So maybe it made not one whit of difference after all. Which leads us indirectly to Green Eyes. This high body count adventure takes place in San Francisco's Chinatown. The Shadow is operating on his own and he is still unstoppable-boring! Green Eyes is essentially a "yellow peril" novel with a twist at the end you won't see coming unless you have ever seen an episode of Scooby Doo. However I enjoyed the descriptions of Chinatown as a Very Mysterious Place-this shines through even Maxwell Grant's (Walter B Gibson's) typically turgid prose so I will give this three stars.
May 29, 2019
A man is murdered on a train, and the trail leads a federal investigator -- and The Shadow -- to San Francisco's Chinatown and a gang called the Wu-Fan. This story was originally published in 1932, so there are some cringe-worthy racial stereotypes (much as in the movies of that era) but, that aside, this is quite an engaging story. A real page-turner.
August 26, 2024
I was excited for this one: The Shadow in San Francisco's Chinatown, a locale I have some limited experience with, and the story gets rolling with some action and 1930s atmosphere aboard one of the luxurious cross-country trains of the era, heading eastward near Truckee. Unfortunately, the story from there is very much in the "just ok" category. A lot of frustrating absurdity, some predictability, and a really surprising amount of casual racism toward the Chinese. I was warned by a reviewer that this story had "yellowface," but I didn't think much of it; it was the 30s, I know how these stories speak about racial matters with a bluntly egotistic and anglocentric worldview. But I was actually surprised: this story did feel like it cranked up the disrespect and did feel notably a little racist compared to other entries.
The shift in racial tone almost makes me wonder if an undisclosed ghostwriter stepped in for Gibson here.... I mention that because it's a theme I'll return to.
Overall, I'd give this one three stars, but with an important caveat: I'm rating this as average because it has one sequence that is five star worthy, a few interesting moments, and the SF setting is a nice change of pace. Without those factors, the remaining story itself is on the weak side of two stars, and I'd probably say that the only reason I can't call it infuriatingly predictable is because there were so many instances where the author himself didn't know what was going to happen, or even what had already happened.
I'm going to spend most of this review detailing the absurdity that hung over the story from the moment I started to suspect it was going that direction, but first, there were some enjoyable highlights, and I want to touch on one that I think really deserves praise.
In my review of the last story, Hidden Death, I commented that by this point Gibson seemed to have figured out his gun terminology, finally, and was no longer using "revolver" and "automatic" interchangeably and carelessly. I don't remember the last story where he messed this up, but for the last few I think he's had it right. However, this story takes the sophistication and realism of how he describes battle sequences to another level, and it's just totally unexpected after how haphazard he's been in the past.
In this story, there is an action sequence around the midpoint that is in fact the true climax of the story, to the point that I would honestly say that if you're trying to decide whether to read this and don't feel particularly inclined to, go ahead and skip it, but do take a moment to read Chapter VII: Cleve Sees The Shadow. In this chaotic battle, Gibson's description of events becomes uncharacteristically unchaotic: The Shadow fires 16 shots, emptying both automatics, reloads, breaks cover to draw fire away from the agent he's there to rescue, fires all but one round in his righthand automatic, deals with a knife-wielding foe up close, and then fires the final bullet so that it flies just barely past the gun that's already pointed at him. The Shadow then took a revolver away from another attacker and used it to fire two shots as cover fire during their escape. The richness of detail in this scene is unprecedented in the series to this point! And that uncharacteristic detail, realism, and interest in painting a clear picture of actions, is what again gives me the feeling I mentioned earlier, of wondering whether it was truly one writer behind all of these early stories, and one writer behind all of this particular story. Whatever its authorial origin, this chapter I give five stars, shining from the darkness of an otherwise dimly written tale.
The most noteworthy highlight out of the way, I want to dig into what felt glaring to me: the apparent uncertainty over how to use the title of this story. Who or what is Green Eyes? (I'll try not to give major spoilers, but I will discuss some of the minor details of how the story progresses, so if you're about to read the story you should probably stop here.) Well, how the author wanted to approach that question seemed to change randomly as we got into the story. In the opening, the man on the run said:
"Green! Green! Like those other lights - like those awful eyes!"
So, no one else heard that, but we the readers know the title refers to lights, probably presented in the form of eyes.
As he dies, the first thing he says is:
"Eyes... Green eyes!"
With that, we know he has some fearful fixation on green eyes as a result of some lights, but those who heard him say this would assume he was just murdered by someone with green eyes.
When The Shadow reaches SF to begin investigating this, he checks into the victim's hotel room as Henry Arnaud, looks out the window at Chinatown, and:
"From the center of the circle shone two lights of green, placed side by side. They seemed a challenge to the man who watched them from the window of the hotel. An imaginative person - had Henry Arnaud been such - might have sworn that those lights were staring back at him.”
Having seen that, The Shadow made his preparations to leave, having apparently learned exactly what he'd come for. Now The Shadow and the readers both know that the title of the story refers to the two green eyes on the dragon sign visible from the victim's window. Clear enough.
Meanwhile, the federal authorities are looking into it, and they quite reasonably think they're looking for a killer with green eyes, but also they're investigating a local Chinese supremacist organization, which, I don't think it's a spoiler to say, will turn out to be up to something, and involved with the murder. How the feds put the two together, despite seeming to know nothing about this organization, I don't remember.
But The Shadow checks into another room that also has a view of the green eyed sign:
"From this window, an observer commanded the same view of the city that one gained from the window in the Aldebaran Hotel. The Shadow, now, was gazing straight toward Chinatown, exactly as he had gazed on the night when he had come to San Francisco!
In the distance, the watcher saw the crawling lights of the sign that topped the Mukden Theater. The luminous ring of stationary lights was aglow above the moving lines. From the center of that circle glowed two green spots, side by side.
Green eyes!
They sent a message - a message meant for others, not for The Shadow! But he received their message.
Those luminous spots were aglow for the first time since that other night. Like focused eyes, they seemed to glare into the blackness.
Green eyes of Chinatown, peering forth across the city!
What was the message that they sent?
That might be learned tonight. The Shadow knew that fact.
The man of the dark was preparing to accept the challenge. Those spots of green were the instruments of some unknown personage. Like The Shadow, that man had a veiled identity. He, too, possessed a strange, descriptive name.
Green Eyes!
. . .
The distant spots that shone like glowing emeralds were the visible symbol of Green Eyes."
Now hold up. Everything we've learned to this point tells us that the feds are seeking a killer with green eyes who might be called Green Eyes, but The Shadow knows the dying man's words were referring to the lights atop the building he tried to reference with the rest of his message. But suddenly it's just being stated that The Shadow also just knows Green Eyes is someone's name, just as the feds have assumed for incorrect reasons. In addition, we're told here that the eyes don't come on regularly, so they just happened to be on during the brief time he was in the victim's room—by coincidence he was there at just the right time to learn that green eyes doesn't refer to a person, and then he ignores that information and we're told, nah, actually it's a person.
And then it gets more ridiculous. I have to repeat it for clarity, because it's so dumb: At this point, the feds think they're after a person who might be called Green Eyes. The Shadow has discovered that actually it's the lights that the murdered man mentioned to himself at the beginning of the story. Despite that, The Shadow has also decided the feds are right that it's a person, for no reason. BUT! A few chapters later we get this passage, from the point of view of the federal agent whom we already know has been thinking about whether he's spotted anyone with green eyes during his investigations:
"This was only a snatch of Ling Soo's statement 'It has been settled... Green Eyes.'
There was an impressive sound to the final words. They were uttered as one would speak a name.
Green Eyes!
Dying, Stephen Laird had spoken of green eyes. Had he been telling of a living person? Of his murderer?
The thought was startling!
WHY did Ling Soo name Green Eyes? There was something sinister in the title. It brought a chain of wild, fantastic ideas."
The thought was startling! The agent who's investigating a murder in which he has every reason to think the culprit was someone with green eyes, or someone called Green Eyes; who has already been thinking about how Ling Soo's eyes aren't green, and his local contact has blue eyes, but he hasn't yet found someone with obvious green eyes; who has no reason to think these words weren't referring to whoever was responsible for the murder... When he hears someone say Green Eyes as if it's a name, the idea that the dying man had been referring to a person... is now startling to him. The confusion over order of events and what various characters know when is so obvious in this story that it ruins it. I honestly spent a lot of this one just hoping I was wrong about where everything seemed to be awkwardly headed, and then everything played out exactly as expected/feared, but in this cobbled together way that just can't be overlooked.
The shift in racial tone almost makes me wonder if an undisclosed ghostwriter stepped in for Gibson here.... I mention that because it's a theme I'll return to.
Overall, I'd give this one three stars, but with an important caveat: I'm rating this as average because it has one sequence that is five star worthy, a few interesting moments, and the SF setting is a nice change of pace. Without those factors, the remaining story itself is on the weak side of two stars, and I'd probably say that the only reason I can't call it infuriatingly predictable is because there were so many instances where the author himself didn't know what was going to happen, or even what had already happened.
I'm going to spend most of this review detailing the absurdity that hung over the story from the moment I started to suspect it was going that direction, but first, there were some enjoyable highlights, and I want to touch on one that I think really deserves praise.
In my review of the last story, Hidden Death, I commented that by this point Gibson seemed to have figured out his gun terminology, finally, and was no longer using "revolver" and "automatic" interchangeably and carelessly. I don't remember the last story where he messed this up, but for the last few I think he's had it right. However, this story takes the sophistication and realism of how he describes battle sequences to another level, and it's just totally unexpected after how haphazard he's been in the past.
In this story, there is an action sequence around the midpoint that is in fact the true climax of the story, to the point that I would honestly say that if you're trying to decide whether to read this and don't feel particularly inclined to, go ahead and skip it, but do take a moment to read Chapter VII: Cleve Sees The Shadow. In this chaotic battle, Gibson's description of events becomes uncharacteristically unchaotic: The Shadow fires 16 shots, emptying both automatics, reloads, breaks cover to draw fire away from the agent he's there to rescue, fires all but one round in his righthand automatic, deals with a knife-wielding foe up close, and then fires the final bullet so that it flies just barely past the gun that's already pointed at him. The Shadow then took a revolver away from another attacker and used it to fire two shots as cover fire during their escape. The richness of detail in this scene is unprecedented in the series to this point! And that uncharacteristic detail, realism, and interest in painting a clear picture of actions, is what again gives me the feeling I mentioned earlier, of wondering whether it was truly one writer behind all of these early stories, and one writer behind all of this particular story. Whatever its authorial origin, this chapter I give five stars, shining from the darkness of an otherwise dimly written tale.
The most noteworthy highlight out of the way, I want to dig into what felt glaring to me: the apparent uncertainty over how to use the title of this story. Who or what is Green Eyes? (I'll try not to give major spoilers, but I will discuss some of the minor details of how the story progresses, so if you're about to read the story you should probably stop here.) Well, how the author wanted to approach that question seemed to change randomly as we got into the story. In the opening, the man on the run said:
"Green! Green! Like those other lights - like those awful eyes!"
So, no one else heard that, but we the readers know the title refers to lights, probably presented in the form of eyes.
As he dies, the first thing he says is:
"Eyes... Green eyes!"
With that, we know he has some fearful fixation on green eyes as a result of some lights, but those who heard him say this would assume he was just murdered by someone with green eyes.
When The Shadow reaches SF to begin investigating this, he checks into the victim's hotel room as Henry Arnaud, looks out the window at Chinatown, and:
"From the center of the circle shone two lights of green, placed side by side. They seemed a challenge to the man who watched them from the window of the hotel. An imaginative person - had Henry Arnaud been such - might have sworn that those lights were staring back at him.”
Having seen that, The Shadow made his preparations to leave, having apparently learned exactly what he'd come for. Now The Shadow and the readers both know that the title of the story refers to the two green eyes on the dragon sign visible from the victim's window. Clear enough.
Meanwhile, the federal authorities are looking into it, and they quite reasonably think they're looking for a killer with green eyes, but also they're investigating a local Chinese supremacist organization, which, I don't think it's a spoiler to say, will turn out to be up to something, and involved with the murder. How the feds put the two together, despite seeming to know nothing about this organization, I don't remember.
But The Shadow checks into another room that also has a view of the green eyed sign:
"From this window, an observer commanded the same view of the city that one gained from the window in the Aldebaran Hotel. The Shadow, now, was gazing straight toward Chinatown, exactly as he had gazed on the night when he had come to San Francisco!
In the distance, the watcher saw the crawling lights of the sign that topped the Mukden Theater. The luminous ring of stationary lights was aglow above the moving lines. From the center of that circle glowed two green spots, side by side.
Green eyes!
They sent a message - a message meant for others, not for The Shadow! But he received their message.
Those luminous spots were aglow for the first time since that other night. Like focused eyes, they seemed to glare into the blackness.
Green eyes of Chinatown, peering forth across the city!
What was the message that they sent?
That might be learned tonight. The Shadow knew that fact.
The man of the dark was preparing to accept the challenge. Those spots of green were the instruments of some unknown personage. Like The Shadow, that man had a veiled identity. He, too, possessed a strange, descriptive name.
Green Eyes!
. . .
The distant spots that shone like glowing emeralds were the visible symbol of Green Eyes."
Now hold up. Everything we've learned to this point tells us that the feds are seeking a killer with green eyes who might be called Green Eyes, but The Shadow knows the dying man's words were referring to the lights atop the building he tried to reference with the rest of his message. But suddenly it's just being stated that The Shadow also just knows Green Eyes is someone's name, just as the feds have assumed for incorrect reasons. In addition, we're told here that the eyes don't come on regularly, so they just happened to be on during the brief time he was in the victim's room—by coincidence he was there at just the right time to learn that green eyes doesn't refer to a person, and then he ignores that information and we're told, nah, actually it's a person.
And then it gets more ridiculous. I have to repeat it for clarity, because it's so dumb: At this point, the feds think they're after a person who might be called Green Eyes. The Shadow has discovered that actually it's the lights that the murdered man mentioned to himself at the beginning of the story. Despite that, The Shadow has also decided the feds are right that it's a person, for no reason. BUT! A few chapters later we get this passage, from the point of view of the federal agent whom we already know has been thinking about whether he's spotted anyone with green eyes during his investigations:
"This was only a snatch of Ling Soo's statement 'It has been settled... Green Eyes.'
There was an impressive sound to the final words. They were uttered as one would speak a name.
Green Eyes!
Dying, Stephen Laird had spoken of green eyes. Had he been telling of a living person? Of his murderer?
The thought was startling!
WHY did Ling Soo name Green Eyes? There was something sinister in the title. It brought a chain of wild, fantastic ideas."
The thought was startling! The agent who's investigating a murder in which he has every reason to think the culprit was someone with green eyes, or someone called Green Eyes; who has already been thinking about how Ling Soo's eyes aren't green, and his local contact has blue eyes, but he hasn't yet found someone with obvious green eyes; who has no reason to think these words weren't referring to whoever was responsible for the murder... When he hears someone say Green Eyes as if it's a name, the idea that the dying man had been referring to a person... is now startling to him. The confusion over order of events and what various characters know when is so obvious in this story that it ruins it. I honestly spent a lot of this one just hoping I was wrong about where everything seemed to be awkwardly headed, and then everything played out exactly as expected/feared, but in this cobbled together way that just can't be overlooked.
December 11, 2018
I'm a long time fan of the Shadow. In this story, the Shadow isn't the main character. Federal Investigator, Cleve Branch is the main character and The Shadow plays a secondary role as they both work towards eliminating the Chinese criminal organization called Wu Fan. This is one of my least favorite Shadow story.
June 21, 2024
The best Shadow I have read so far. He is very mysterious in that we see his Shadow more than him throughout the book. None of the usual aides in the story. A Chinatown setting but not filled with too many of the usual 30s-40s derogatory stereotypes as some books of the era. Nothing cringe-worthy. Well paced.
January 19, 2016
A man named Stephen Laird is on a train and nervous. There is some strange red mark on his forehead. He writes a letter, but is soon murdered and the letter is taken.
A man named Henry Arnaud checks into a motel. A Chinese man sneaks into the room to kill him, but he's not there. Arnaud, of course, is the Shadow.
Other important characters include Joseph Darley, head of a Citizen's Committee, and Cleve from the FBI. They sent him to investigate the Wu-dan and Ling Soo, their leader. Ling Soo supposedly has plans to take over the U.S., but not for a long time.
Cleve uses a disguise to get into the Wu-fan. Later he goes to a meeting, gets into a lot of trouble, and is saved by the Shadow.
Later the scene ends up on a boat and the Shadow, in the disguise of a Chinese man, is caught and tied to a torture device. He manages to escape, and bring the Shadow's justice to the evil men who were involved in a major opium smuggling ring.
Maxwell Grant's interest in magic is shown in his references to Houdini. The story, being written when it was, also shows some of the prejudice of the times against Chinese, referring to them as Celestials, and using fairly stereotyped descriptions.
It's a really good Shadow story.
A man named Henry Arnaud checks into a motel. A Chinese man sneaks into the room to kill him, but he's not there. Arnaud, of course, is the Shadow.
Other important characters include Joseph Darley, head of a Citizen's Committee, and Cleve from the FBI. They sent him to investigate the Wu-dan and Ling Soo, their leader. Ling Soo supposedly has plans to take over the U.S., but not for a long time.
Cleve uses a disguise to get into the Wu-fan. Later he goes to a meeting, gets into a lot of trouble, and is saved by the Shadow.
Later the scene ends up on a boat and the Shadow, in the disguise of a Chinese man, is caught and tied to a torture device. He manages to escape, and bring the Shadow's justice to the evil men who were involved in a major opium smuggling ring.
Maxwell Grant's interest in magic is shown in his references to Houdini. The story, being written when it was, also shows some of the prejudice of the times against Chinese, referring to them as Celestials, and using fairly stereotyped descriptions.
It's a really good Shadow story.
February 2, 2016
When it comes to pulp heroes there are 2 or 3 great standouts and the Shadow is one of those. The stories are fast paced and action filled. The mystery just adds to the excitement. With his army of agents to help the Shadow never lets you down for a great read. Highly recommended
April 1, 2015
I prefer the Shadow of the radio series but this was enjoyable for what it was.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews