Murder or Suicide?

 

cover art by Graves Gladney

Last week, we looked at a Shadow story which involved a Gypsy fortune teller--though actually she was a part of setting up people for crime.

This week, we'll look at a Shadow story published in the March 15, 1940 issue of the hero's magazine. In "The Veiled Prophet," we meet a villain who both plans crimes, then sort-of "predicts" them in notes he sends to the cops. 

This is another one written by Walter Gibson under the house name of Maxwell Grant.

The Veiled Prophet (also called Mokanna--after an 8th Century Arab prophet/con man) has a pretty neat set-up going. He digs up information on people who have committed crimes in the past, then blackmails them into committing crimes for him. He also alerts the cops to each impending crime, but with vague-enough information so that they are never quite in time to stop it.

The novel opens with one of those cimes in progress--but with the Shadow also on hand. He's figured out Mokanna's M.O. That particular cime is foiled. So is the next one, but in each case Mokanna's pawn is killed and any trail back to the main villain is lost.

There are suspects, though. Halfway through the book, a businessman is at least tentatively identified as Mokanna. He is then killed by apparent suicide with a note that confirms he was the villain.

Halfway through the book? Yeah, right.

The guy's spunky niece is determined to prove his innocence and soon ends up helping the Shadow as a sort-of defacto agent. There are at least three suspects who might be the real Mokanna. But Mokanna has a talent for deflected suspicion onto others and only a detective as good as the Shadow has any real chance of figuring it out. 

The strong plot is punctuated by several great action scenes, including a fight in an abandoned house in which the bad guys start tossing incendiary grenades at the Shadow, giving him a few bad moments. 

"The Veiled Prophet" isn't quite as good as "Gypsy Vengeance," but even an average Walter Gibson Shadow novel is a ton of fun.