Welcome to Volume Three, Number Eight of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine. 

Carriers by Mark DuCharme returns with it’s gothic air of  shadowy creatures who might just be the living dead. Carriers is a vampire novella with touches of black comedy and satirical bite, and is told from the perspective of its unreliable narrator and protagonist, Johnny. It takes place during a “plague” that has been going on for two years in an unnamed city. Dead bodies litter the streets, hallways, and homes. A corpse disposal company hires people like Johnny to transport them to a facility at the edge of town with the very important stipulation that the bodies be delivered there before sundown. No one ever says why. Read more in the latest installment of  Carriers, Episodes V-VII .

Issue 8 brings to a close Colin Deerwood’s long running serial, Better Than Dead, A Detective Story, featuring the unpredictable peregrinations of private investigator Lackland Ask, aka Stan Gardner, aka Sam Carter, and now Dr. Jerome Paulsen, O.D. leaving on a freighter for Cuba one step ahead of the law, the mob, and the draft board. All the loose ends (and there were many) are tied up or disposed of (are they?), and now the fugitive confidential agent can exit stage left. Find out how the story ends in Better Than Dead, Episode 30.  (A note from the author reminds us that the cover of this issue is from an original Black Mask magazine, c. 1940, and as such was the catalyst and inspiration for the more than 150 pages of serial crime fiction that followed. )

This issue also introduces a new private eye, Don Coyote,  brain child of Mike Servante, a newbie to the musty (and labyrinthine) halls of serial crime fiction although an aficionado of the genre, in a metatextual story that promises to be a lot of fun, titled The Man From La Mirada Perdida, A Don Coyote & Saundra Pansy Adventure. Read  inaugural episodes i & ii in this latest offering of imaginative crime fiction from Dime Pulp.

Dime Pulp regular authors Pierre Anton Taylor and Phyllis Huldarsdottir were unfortunately caught up in the  seasonal vortices that often cause time displacement, especially as the days get shorter,  and the imprudent certainty that there is still plenty of time to get everything done.  Phyllis’s steampunk adventure, Cheése Stands Alone, will return in Vol. 4, Number 1 in early 2024, as will Pierre’s crimefighter fiction, Just Coincidence.

FYI: Available for readers of Dime Pulp who may have missed a few issues or lost the thread of a serial,  Dime Pulp Yearbook 21, featuring 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,  is joined by Dime Pulp Yearbook 22, featuring the complete pulp Western, On The Road To Las Cruces, continuing episodes of  a detective story, Better Than Dead, the opening chapters of new serial novels, Just Coincidence and Cheése Stands Alone, the short fiction of Hard Boiled Myth and Polka Dot Dress, as well as Dropping A Dime’s pithy pulp observations.  Volume Two’s 10 issues are available for perusal in their entirety by simply clicking on the links in this paragraph or on the menu bar above. Dime Pulp Yearbook 23 will be available in late January ’24 as part of the annual archival review.

If you’ve made it this far, click  on the links above to read the entertaining  serial contents of Volume Three, Number 8

Special Note: Dime Pulp, A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine has changed its posting schedule from  monthly issues to once every forty-five days (more or less—mostly more). Thus Volume Three will (hopefully) consist of eight issues (much to the relief of the overworked writers and production staff). Thank you for your understanding.

 —Perry O’Dickle, chief scribe
and word accountant