The cover story for the August 1944 issue of Private Detective Stories is "Black Murder," by Roger Torrey. The table of contents calls it a full-length novel, but that's a bit of a fib. It's novella-length at best.
Torrey was one of those mind-numblingly prolific pulp writers who seemed to have a typewriter surgically attached to him, churning out an endless stream of short stories. Torrey's expertise was in private detective stories and he juggled a number of lead characters.
As was often the case for the more prolific pulpsters, Torrey used a number of pseudonyms. One of those pseudonyms was Jack Ryan, used for ten stories appearing from 1942 to 1946 featuring a NYC-based P.I. named... Jack Ryan.
Ryan's stories appeared in both Private Detective Stories and Speed Detective. And on at least five occasions, an issue that included a Jack Ryan story also included a story with the Roger Torrey byline. The guy was getting two paychecks per issue, which I think is a pretty admirable accomplishment. He's probably far from the only pulp writer who did this, but it's still a pretty neat trick.
I've just read the Ryan tale appearing in this issue of Private Detective--"Ticket to Death." It's the only one I've read, because this is yet another case where a series from the pulp days has never been anthologized. Why our entire culture and economy is not slanted exclusively towards properly organizing and re-printing pulp fiction is beyond me.
"Ticket to Death" takes Ryan out of New York City and sends him on a vacation to Florida. He's not sure how long he wants to stay, so he buys a return train ticket that he can theortically redeem anytime in the next 30 days. But when Florida starts to bore him a little after two weeks, he discovers that war-time travel restrictions means he can't get a seat on the train when he wants it.
Immediately, several people hint that they might be able to provide him with a black market train ticket. But Ryan hates the black market. So, with time to kill in Florida and despite the fact that he didn't pack his gun, he begins to look into the train ticket scheme. He tails a railroad clerk he suspects is crooked, impresses a kid being used by the gang as a messenger by implying he's a G-Man, and begins backtracking bad guys to find the head of the operation.
He's not worried about being unarmed, because he doesn't see black martket railroad tickets as a potentially violent situation. But anything that involves money can inspire violence. Ryan soon finds himself being held at gunpoint by a a couple of thugs.
This leads to a well-described gunfight and eventually to an encounter with a really annoyed undercover FBI agent, bringing the short and entertaining yarn to a fun conclusion.
"Ticket to Death" (along with "Black Murder") can both be read HERE.
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