Six Men of Evil

 

cover art by George Rozen

Six Men of Evil (from Feb. 15th, 1933 issue of The Shadow Magazine)

This is a weird one, even in the context of the Shadow's often weird universe. Six men, after an attempt to steal a priceless jewel from a remote tribe in Mexico, end up with identical faces. They plan to use this to commit crimes, establish perfect alibis for those crimes and frame someone else. Within a few chapters, they have murdered a man, stolen some valuable bonds, embezzled money from a bank, and pulled off a marry-the-rich-girl-then-murder-her scheme.

But crimes take place in different locations around the country, but the Shadow notices the pattern: Each time, the person arrested for the crime accusses someone who has a perfect alibi. The Master of Mystery deduces that the real criminals used doubles, though he doesn't at first know how this is possible.

The Shadow and his agents investigate. He eventually finds out how they all ended up with the same face--a process that would strain credulity in a more realistic universe, but makes perfect sense in a pulp universe.

He also discovers how the mastermind communicates with the other members of the gang, using this to track them down just as the next crime is about to be committed. This leads to an awesome car chase and the apparent death of the ringleader.

But the Shadow knows all. One last confrontation with the surviving Men of Evil takes place in San Francisco's Chinatown. 

This novel is a little lighter on action than most other Shadow tales, but it still has several great action moments. And the mystery is a good one, with the Shadow using clever and logical methods to track down the bad guys and figure out how they somehow become identical sextuplets.  The villians overlay the novel with a strong weirdness vibe that works quite well, giving this one an eerie individuality among other Shadow novels.