 | #059 "The Crime Master"
Vol. 10, No. 5 Published: 08/01/34 Submitted: 09/15/33 under the same title Author: Walter Gibson Review date: Jan 26, 2001 |
THE CRIME MASTER was originally published in the August 1, 1934 issue of The Shadow Magazine. He is a fiend incarnate. Somewhere in Manhattan, secluded in his paneled room, The Crime Master, wizened and gray-haired, places pawnlike pieces upon a many-squared board. He controls the mob bosses of the city. The underworld is in the hollow of his scrawny hand.
He forms a grotesque sight as he rests in his chair. His scrawny fingers are clasped beneath his chin. His grayish face, thin nosed, with scowling lips and fanglike teeth, is as terrible as his fiendish eyes. The mass of white hair adds to his insidious appearance. He looks like a portrayal of the figure of Death, ready to hew down victims with a sharpened scythe.
It is this monstrous force of evil that The Shadow must battle. The Shadow, lone wolf of action, who uses but a handful of trusted agents; The Crime Master, generalissimo of evil, relying upon massed hordes organized into a mighty fighting body. Can The Shadow drive a wedge into The Crime Master's cunning game? Which will win? I'm betting on The Shadow!
In this story, we see those famous concave rubber discs that The Shadow attaches to his hands and feet so that he can climb the sheer outside walls of buildings. Also that mysterious vial of pungent elixir that revives The Shadow when he's been wounded. Two items that are not often seen in Shadow novels, but highly anticipted and appreciated when they do show up.
So who's here? Which familiar characters appear in this early story? Lamont Cranston, Harry Vincent, Burbank, Cliff Marsland, Clyde Burke, Rutledge Mann, Dr. Rupert Sayre, Detective Joe Cardona, Commissioner Weston.
It's a great story of The Crime Master - superman of evil, against The Shadow, superfoe of crime.