The Crime Master

"The Crime Master," published in the August 1, 1934 issue of The Shadow Magazine, not only features one of George Rozen's coolest covers (which is really saying something), but also succeeds in being one of Walter Gibson's finest Shadow stories.

The premise is one Gibson revisited on a number of occasions--a brilliant master criminal (identity unknown) is the brains behind a massive crime wave. This, though, is one of the finest examples, showing us that endless and entertaining varieties on a particular theme are available to a skilled storyteller.

The Crime Master uses a sort of chess board--a map of the city divided into grids--to plot out his crimes. Green pieces on the board represent gangs made up of gunmen; blue pieces are safe-crackers and other experts of that ilk; red are for "hidden watchers and snipers." White pieces represent the cops and he eventually adds a black piece for the Shadow.

He places these pieces on the board to plot out robberies that will net large amounts of cash or valuable loot, setting things up so that a cordon of crooks can hold off the cops and allow the gangs with the loot to make getaways. It's a violent but effective way of carrying out crime.

He's also got a pretty clever way of passing his plans on to the gang leaders without leaving a clear paper trail back to him, so not even his minions know who he is. But the Shadow has become interested, intercepting messages and setting up traps for the gangs.

The novel has a nifty back-and-forth feel to it. The Shadow manages to foil a robbery, mostly working alone but also warning the cops so that they are present to help clean up leftover crooks. But the Crime Master sets a trap for the Shadow during the next job. His men get away with the loot and (in one of Gibson's best action sequences) the Shadow is badly wounded and only gets away by the skin of his teeth.

While the Shadow is recuperating, agent Cliff Marsland manages to get information about the Crime Master's next job, then use a known stool pigeon to pass this on to the police. The cops are able to put a stop to that particular robbery.

But the Crime Master manages a trick of his own, allowing him to discover Marsland is an agent of the Shadow and feed false information to the mysterious crime fighter. The Shadow, still weakened from his wounds, soon finds himself in an apparently inescapable trap, while the Crime Master plots a robbery that will net him millions of dollars.

Walter Gibson's Shadow novels are typically fast-moving and exciting stories in which the plots follow a logical path from start to finish. Here, I think, is one of his best efforts, inching ahead of many of the others in pure quality.