| Pulp AdventureCon 2020 has come and gone … all the planning and concerns, all the winding down afterward … Thanks to everyone who attended, and everyone who spread the word. If you weren’t there, read Walker Martin’s impressions of the show on the MysteryFile blog. |
| The phrase “Gothic Mystery” evokes images of beautiful women running from austere castles, situated near coastline cliffs … Fog-enshrouded cemeteries with marble mazes of tombstones and mausoleums. Such covers adorned numerous paperbacks from the 1940s through the 1970s, as the Gothic Mystery became a publishing industry unto itself. Bold Venture Press presents three of these classic tales by Norman Firth, a talented gothic mystery practitioner during England’s post-war years. |
| Gothic Mystery Library |
| Murders Macabre by Norman Firth Three chilling tales of suspense “Terror Stalks By Night” — One week after Lucille Rivers was found mutilated, the Rivers family gathers for the reading of the will. “Phantom of Charnel House” — A grisly apparition prowls the newly built Charnel Estate. “The Devil In Her” — The frightened locals tell Dr. Alan Carter stories of a murderous woman roaming the moor. Get Murders Macabre here |
| Norman Firth |
 English writer Norman Firth became a full-time writer in 1944, taking full advantage of a peculiar British climate of “mushroom” publishing caused by wartime austerity. He soon averaged 6,000 words a day, commissioned by many small publishers to turn out lurid crime, western and science fiction stories. In the late 1940s Firth accepted a lucrative commission from Utopian Publications owner Benson Herbert to write 30,000 words a month of “spicy” stories for his various magazines. Firth was only 29 years old when he died of tuberculosis in December 1949, but he had published several million words. He continued writing up until his death, completing a full-length crime noir novel, When Shall I Sleep Again? Many of Firth’s myriad pseudonyms were undiscovered until recently. Philip Harbottle, agent for Firth’s estate (working with his collecting colleague Morgan Wallace) recently discovered several more.Bold Venture will publish new collections of the best of them, beginning with Murders Macabre. |
New Pulp Heroes 