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Title: Crime, Insured (The Shadow Double Novel Vol #1)
Author: Walter B. Gibson
ISBN: 1-932806-48-2
Format: Oversized Paperback
60 Pages (pages 7 - 66)
Overall Concept 8
Execution 8

Having been a fan of The Shadow in the movies (the 1994 movie starring Alec Baldwin in the titular role), comic books (The Shadow series by Howard Chaykin), and radio dramas (the snibbets of the various shows I've gotten to hear over the years), I was quite pleased to find out that Nostalgia Ventures had secured the rights to begin to reprint the 1930's novels that were originally published by Street and Smith in The Shadow magazine.

It was very refreshing to finally get to read some of the original pulp adventure stories from that era, as I've heard so much over the years.

I was very pleased to see that despite the fact that these stories take place over 70 years ago, the style and substance of the stories are not lost. One can easily see how these stories could be adapted to the modern television or movie screen. Actually, Sam Raimi the director of SpiderMan 1-3 is reputed to having secured the rights to make a movie version of The Shadow.

Pulp is often known for its over the top adventure and suspense, and I did see some of that here. However, not near enough to be considered trite or unenjoyable. Actually, I found the story to be very well told and quite the good read.

According to wikipedia.org, there were 325 Shadow novels almost exclusively written by Walter B. Gibson between the years of 1931 and 1949. Considering these were published at an average rate of 1 and a half per month, and had a word count of >50000 words each, Mr. Gibson deserves some serious respect for the speed and quality of what he was producing during this time. I am no longer in awe at the quantity of books some authors have and do produce, and if anything I wonder more towards why some authors don't produce more.

I would whole heartly suggest this read to any lovers of action movies or good mystery tales, and perhaps more people should read these stories as a way of understanding and appreciating a dead/dying genre, the adventure pulp.