Welcome to Volume Two, Number Three of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.
In Pat Nolan’s novella, On The Road To Las Cruces, the legendary Western lawman details the investigation into the disappearance of a prominent New Mexican and his son in what has become known in the Territory as “the White Sands mystery” and the close call with the main suspect in a poker game.
In the latest installment of Colin Deerwood’s Better Than Dead, hapless detective Lackland Ask must reconsider his plan of action now that the Bull Durham sack of diamonds has gone missing. What new tricks does he have up his sleeves as he lies low in the seedier part of the city?
Dismemberment is the subject in Part Two of All Tore Up, Helene Baron Murdock’s latest Hard Boiled Myth, in which Detective Jim Donovan, on the eve of his retirement from Weston County’s Sheriff’s Office Violent Crimes Unit, puts together the pieces of a murder that eerily echoes Greek mythology.
Dime Pulp Yearbook 21 contains the novels (The Last Resort and Better Than Dead) and the short fiction (Hard Boiled Myth and Gone Missing) of Volume One’s 12 issues and are available for perusal in their entirety. If you missed a few issues or lost the thread of a serial, clicking on the link at the beginning of this paragraph or on the menu bar above is a good way to catch up.
Dime Pulp continues its crime spree with the serialization of 2 full length novels, Better Than Dead, A Detective Story and On The Road To Las Cruces as well as a new episode of Hard Boiled Myth . If you’ve made it this far, go ahead and follow the links below to reading entertainment with the serial contents of Volume Two, Number Three.
—Perry O’Dickle, chief scribe
and word accountant
“Lackland Ask is the name. ‘Lack’ to my friends, ‘Don’t’ to those who think they’re funny. You might have seen my portrait on the cover of Black Mask, the crime fiction magazine. This is my story. It starts with a blonde. This kind of story always starts with a blonde.” Thus begins the seemingly non-stop, endless narrative of Better Than Dead in which women are not the only trouble although most of it, told with the wit and street savvy of Runyon and Parker.
Better Than Dead—15
In late February of 1908, a one-time drover, buffalo hunter, saloon owner, hog farmer, peach grower, horse rancher, US Customs inspector, private investigator, county sheriff, and Deputy US Marshal set out from his adobe home on the mesa above Organ, New Mexico accompanied by a young man in a black buggy on the journey to Las Cruces. He would never arrive. This is the story of that journey, a novel account of the last day in the life of a legendary lawman.
On The Road To Last Cruces—Five—
Greek myth is rife with murder, mutilation, cannibalism, mayhem, and the ever popular incest. Weston County Sheriff’s Detective Jim Donovan of the Violent Crimes Unit wouldn’t know a Greek myth from a Greek salad, but if he did he would find some troubling similarities to the cases he’s investigating. Revisited as crime fiction are the strange death of Hippolytus, the agonizing death of Heracles, the slaughter of Penelope’s suitors, the Fall of Icarus, the sparagamos of Orpheus, and the cursed lineage of Pelops. Helene Baron-Murdock’s Hard Boiled Myth taps into the rich vein of classical literature to frame these ancient tales in a modern context.
Dime Pulp 