Magazine Review: Spicy Mystery Stories June 1936

Magazine Review: Spicy Mystery Stories June 1936 by various creators

As I’ve previously mentioned, the “spicy” pulps were racy for their time, with descriptions of women’s breasts and thighs, and it being obvious that the characters are having sex, but never actually describing the sex or genitals. This particular magazine, despite the title, has little to do with the standard mystery genre, but is more in the “weird menace” subgenre of horror.

“Surgeon of Souls” by Robert Leslie Bellem leads off the issue with the first appearance of his Doctor Zarkov (no relation to the one from Flash Gordon) series character. Businessman Harvey Bannister can’t shake the feeling of being watched as he heads to the apartment of his longtime mistress Lola. But there’s no one there, so he continues to the rendezvous. After they, um, embrace, Harvey reveals that he’s had extraordinarily bad financial luck and is on the brink of ruin. There’s just one chance. Over the years Harvey has given Lola thousands of dollars worth of jewelry, stocks and bonds. If he can have them back and cash them in, he might be able to cover his losses.

Lola laughs in his face. She was only in this relationship for Harvey’s money, and if the gravy train is over, she’s no longer interested. Besides, she gave all the financial instruments to her side piece, Harvey’s now former friend Dave. Goodbye, sucker!

Harvey’s heart twists as he leaves, filled with hatred for those he once loved. It’s at this point he meets Dr. Zarkov, who has a business card that says he’s a “surgeon of souls.” The odd little man tells Harvey he’s got soul cancer, and a bad case. The only certain cure is to let go of his hatred, but Harvey’s not ready for that. Dr. Zarkov is willing to treat the symptoms by loaning Harvey enough money to get out of his financial crisis.

This lifts Harvey’s spirits enough that when he sees a youing woman in trouble, he has enough emotional strength to help her out. One thing leads to another, and some time later, Harvey is again prosperous, and in love with his new lady. It’s at this point that Lola and Dave re-enter Harvey’s life, and his old anger takes over, He does them dirty.

Dr. Zarkov returns to tell Harvey the cancer is back and worse than ever. The businessman will have only one more chance to change course or he will doom himself to death. Harvey knows that what he wants to do is wrong, but the cancer runs deep.

The ending is a downer, and may be triggery for some folks as Dr. Zarkov has an…interesting…concept of mercy.

“Mistress of Vengeance” by Justin Case concerns the seven survivors of an expedition to South America. Six of them are meeting in an isolated old house up North near the sea. The seventh has not been heard from in months. There’s a strange scent in the house, of a flower that could not possibly be blooming in this climate, one sacred to the Amazonian tribe of women they’d earned the enmity of on the expedition. One by one, the members of the expedition die as it seems the women have come to seek revenge.

The ending of this one comes off as a bit of a cheat. A dream, or was it?

“The Cat Tastes Blood” by Cary Moran is the title feature. Gang boss “Big” Briggs is hiding out in a cabin in the Northwoods near the Canadian border. With him are the Canadian Tommy gunner Catlett, and Catlett’s moll, the exotic dancer Nola. Catlett also brought along his three pet cats. The isolation is getting to Briggs, as it might be months before his crafty lawyer can get charges suppressed, and there’s not much to do in the tiny cabin.

Briggs is finding that the cats set him on edge, and will mistreat them when Catlett isn’t looking. He’s also developing an itch for Nola, who maybe isn’t quite as faithful to her paramour as she acts. Catlett warns Briggs that if a cat tastes blood, they’ll want more.

When winter snows them in, the situation is set to explode. This story has a particularly chilling and horrific ending.

“Dead Man’s Shoes” by Lew Merrill directly references the Depression, as protagonist Bruce Gaines is an engineer who’s been out of a job so long his clothes are rags, and his shoes barely qualify for that name. Bruce spots the corpse of a young woman, the latest victim of a serial killer, who knocks him down. The police arrive and assume Bruce is their man.

The real murderer is caught while Bruce is still being interrogated. Feeling a bit sorry for the fellow, the cops take up a collection of spare clothes from the officers to replace his rags. And while they’re at it, the killer’s shoes as they are really nice and that fellow isn’t going anywhere for a while. (The murderer “commits suicide” in his cell that night.)

In decent clothes again, Bruce is able to land a job with the Civilian Conservation Corps to tide him over until he can get something his engineering degree is good for. However, he soon finds that he’s having strange feelings towards women, violent feelings that Bruce is having trouble controlling. Could it be the dead man’s shoes passing on the killer’s curse?

The solution to the mystery is one of those groan-worthy “rational” explanations that just boggles anyone who knows how the thing in question actually works.

“Fate of the Faulains” by Jerome Severs Perry stars Donald Martyn, whose wife Daphne is descended from the ancient French aristocrats of the title. Supposedly they offended a witch, so that one female descendant in each generation becomes possessed by a demon and kills those she loves. Her psychiatrist pooh-poohs the idea of ancestral curses, and thinks she’s just suffering from early onset dementia. He recommends committing her to an insane asylum.

Donald is more sanguine about finding some way to free his wife from the malevolent spirit that forces her into violent blackouts. When she is found with a dead maid, he takes her to an isolated house in the country. but was that such a good idea?

I like how heavily the story ladles on that the psychiatrist is “obviously evil.” He does have some unfortunate turns of phrase.

“Death’s Chrysalis” by Ellery Watson Calder is a nakedly racist tale about a Chinese undertaker who creates amazingly realistic metal statues of nude women. His secret is exactly what you think it is.

“The Woman Who Would Be Queen” by Colby Quinn is a funnier story. Psychiatrist Dr. Herbert Stacy discovers that he will have to split a large inheritance with his distant but attractive cousin Louise Wayne. Rather than 1) just go ahead and split it and be satisfied with being well off, or 2) marrying his hot cousin to pool the inheritance, Bert decides on a cunning plan.

Dr. Stacy uses hypnosis to make Louise think she’s actually Queen Elizabeth I, and he’s William Shakespeare. If he can get her declared insane by his colleagues, she’ll be out of the will and Bert will get everything! Interesting plan, but he’s forgotten his history…Elizabeth was nobody’s pushover.

“Doom of the Half-Dead” by Harley L. Court is back to straight up horror. John Curran is shocked when he sees Sybil Emery, the older sister of his sweetheart Helene, running towards a cliff. She explains that her recently deceased father has told her that she must destroy herself, and she must obey! She squirms out of John’s arms and leaps to her death.

Helene confirms that Sybil’s story is true. They’ve been getting phone calls from their father, who has an unmistakable voice and knows things only he did. For the family’s good, Sybil had to die to join her father. And Helene must meet with a man named Chundra Singh.

John is not for this, and takes his sweetheart to a local doctor to keep her safe. Then he goes to dig up the father’s grave. The father is in it…except his head. Turns out Chundra Singh has found a way to keep recently deceased heads alive and is using this horrid half-life to enslave them to his will.

It initially looks like this story is going to be just as racist as “Death’s Chrysalis”, but then there’s a double twist at the end. Did not see that coming.

“Lost Magic” by Dennis Craig has Brian Gifford travel to Haiti in search of someone with genuine psychic powers. Dancing girl Lianne does indeed seem to have telekinetic abilities, but she’s torn between the fact that if she loses her virginity she will lose her powers, and the fact that she’s horny for Brian. Those of you who are into being telekinetically held down while your love interest teases you with her body will really find this story worth it. Some racism, though, and there is rape.

This is an interesting variety of stories, though the demands of the subgenre mean there are lot of similar description scenes. The Moran and Quinn stories are the ones I enjoyed most, while the Calder one isn’t good enough to overcome the constant racism on display.

This was very much a men’s magazine, though at least some women also enjoyed these. The ingrained sexism made “Woman” really stand out when the heroine manages to outfox the protagonist.

“Surgeon of Souls” and several other Zarkov stories have been published in a volume of Bellem’s work, if you’re just interested in those. I purchased this facsimile reprint from Adventure House, which also has several other Spicy Mystery issues on tap. Recommended to those who prefer their soft porn with a touch of the fantastic and are willing to put up with the period prejudices.