Dead Man's Chest

By Norbert Davis and John Betancourt

Soldier-of-fortune Poko Kelly runs -- literally -- into a girl in an alley, only to find her persued by villains. After killing two of them, he takes the girl home to her uncle...only to become embroiled in the most dangerous job of his career. A classic crime story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wildside Press
• Release date: Feb 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9781667602219

Book preview

Table of Contents

DEAD MAN’S CHEST, by Norbert Davis

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

INTRODUCTION, by John Betancourt

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

DEAD MAN’S CHEST,

by Norbert Davis

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Originally published in Thrilling Adventures, November 1936.

Published by Wildside Press LLC.

wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com | blackcatweekly.com

INTRODUCTION,

by John Betancourt

American crime fiction writer Norbert Harrison Davis—Bert to his friends—was born in Morrison, Illinois in 1909. In the late 1920s, his family relocated to Southern California. There, he enrolled in Stanford University to study law—surely the perfect choice for a man destined to be one of the best mystery writers for the pulps. Although he graduated, he decided not to take the bar exam. He was already publishing mystery fiction at this time for many of the leading pulp magazines in the genre, including Black Mask, Dime Detective, Double Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, Argosy, as well as slick magazines like The Saturday Evening Post. As a writer, he was making more money than he would have been as an entry-level lawyer.

He married Frances Kirkwood Crane (1890–1981), who was also an American mystery author, She published a mysery series featuring private investigator Pat Abbott and his (eventual) wife Jean in a series of 26 novels, beginning with The Turquoise Shop (1941). Each book featured a color in the title—a memorable gimmick.

In early 1940s, Norbert Davis began transitioning to novels, publishing books like The Mouse in the Mountain (1943, the first of his Doan and Carstairs series) and its sequels Sally’s in the Alley (1943) and Oh, Murderer Mine (1946). This series featured Doan, a short, overweight private investigator, and Carstairs, his Great Dane—who is quite a character himself! For completists, in addition to the 3 Doan and Carstairs novels, there are also two short stories to track down. Davis also published His Murder Picks the Jury (1947, written in collaboration with W. T. Ballard under the pseudonym Harrison Hunt).

Norbert Davis died on July 28, 1949, an apparent suicide following a cancer diagnosis.

In recent years, there has been a revival of interest in Davis and his work. Wildside Press will begin releasing the novels in hardcover, paperback, and ebook formats this year, and Altus Press has already released a complete collection of the Max Latin stories from Dime Detective, entitled—appropriately enough—The Complete Cases of Max Latin (2014), which I highly recommend. If you want to read more of Norbert Davis’s work, these are the books with which you should start. (Frances Crane’s myseries are good, too.)

CHAPTER 2

BELOW THE BORDER

THE tequila smelled like rotten eggs and tasted like carbolic acid slightly diluted with ground glass, but Poco Kelly drank it down without the slightest change in the expression on his face.

How much? he asked.

The greasy mestizo behind the bar was an excellent judge of character. He had to be in this place. One mistake, and they buried him. He took a calculating look at Poco Kelly. He saw an immensely tall man with a long, gaunt face and rust-colored hair