As it appears in The Sinister Ray, by Lester Dent (Brooklyn, New York: Gryphon Books), 1930.
Gadgets, colorful characters with catchy names, and a lack of conjunctions mark Lester Dent’s work on the Doc Savage series in its early supersaga years. The same can be true in some of his pre-Doc work, such as these stories about Lynn Lash collected by publisher Gary Lovisi and introduced by Savage-ologist and literary executor for the Dent estate, Will Murray.
“The Sinister Ray,” the first of the three stories gathered here, was published in the March 1932 issue of Detective-Dragnet -- a magazine that with the March 1933 issue changed its name to the now-better-known 10 Detective Aces -- and describes Lash as a scientific detective. That description may also be applied to Clark Savage, Jr.
There are some other elements in this story that later become familiar in the Doc Savage series. Lash apparently is a man of means -- he has a large office with an adjoining laboratory, and he has a receptionist (sorry, no women receptionists in the all-boys’ club on the 86th Floor); Lash, in this story, is a whiz with both electricity and chemistry, and can rattle off scientific jargon from a study as if it makes sense; he’s called in by the police department to help solve a mystery; a devilish science gadget is used by villains as a super weapon; there’s a threat to national security from a foreign power; there’s a lot of chasing about and running back and forth and clashes with the bad guys, including characters being captured and held hostage; Lash is recognized by low-ranking cops and other folks as a fellow of some celebrity; Lash withholds details from other characters as he solves the puzzle; and a gorilla-like character named Monk features in the action. You may have to remind yourself at times that, after all, this isn't a Doc Savage story.
All this in a fast-paced tale that’s fewer than 60 pages long. A dime could sure buy a lot of entertainment, once upon a time.
"The Sinister Ray" is Dent's first story about Lash, and while from our vantage point we can see how the character prefigures Doc Savage, Dent may have been looking at an already-existing character in an effort to cash in on its popularity: Craig Kennedy, another sort of scientific investigator, who first appeared in the December 1910 issue of Cosmopolitan in a story titled "The Case of Helen Bond." Arther B. Reeve, Kennedy's creator, wrote twelve volumes of stories about this character, sometimes called the American Sherlock Holmes.
Links
The Sinister Ray, which collects the title story and Dent's two follow-up tales about Lynn Lash, is available from Amazon.com. Click here for more info.
From Ghouls to Gangsters: The Career of Arthur B. Reeve: Vol. 1 is a collection of Reeve's stories compiled and edited by John Locke. Click here to learn more about it at Amazon.com.
THE FIRST CRAIG KENNEDY OMNIBUS: Three Classic Novels About the World's Greatest Scientific Detective is a Kindle edition of Craig Kennedy stories. Although the books are called "novels," Reeve actually constructed fix-up novels from his stories. This is a Kindle e-book, so naturally it's available from Amazon.com. Click here to learn more.
For those who prefer printed books, The Dream Doctor is another Craig Kennedy volume, in book format. Click here.
Posted by ds at June 21, 2009 04:47 PM
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