Adventure Novels and Short Stories was a pulp magazine that could not make up its mind. It started as Smashing Novels Magazine in 1936, but changed to Adventiure Novels Magazine for one issue in 1937, then finished up with a couple of issues titled Adventure Novels and Short Stories before closing up shop with the January 1938 issue.
But despite its inability to settle on a name (probably in an attempt to boost sales of the relatively short-lived publication), it published some pretty nifty stuff. And we will turn to that last issue to mark "Adventure" off our genre list.
n"The Smart One" was written by Samuel Taylor, a frequent contributor to pulps during the 1930s and 1940s. This story is a short but well-written tale about a guy who thought he was smarter than anyone else. To get the girl he wants, he has to commit a murder and frame someone else for that murder. His scheme is a little complicated, but that should be no problem. Fox Phillips is confident that he's the smartest man in the Yukon.
Taylor shows himself to be an expert storyteller. He sets up the situation and introduces Fox is just a few quick paragraphs, but his prose flows along in a natural manner and doesn't seem rushed at all. We learn that Fox, who owns the local trading post, is--well, he's less than honest. There's a girl he wants to marry, but the girl's father doesn't like Fox and won't give permission.
But then someone else steps into the picture and Fox--who is, remember, convinced he's smarter than everyone else--quickly conceives his murder/frame-someone-else plan. He puts that plan into effect, convinced that nothing can go wrong.
Well, something can go wrong. Will Fox outsmart everyone when things go wrong? Well, the story can be found HERE, so learn for yourself. It's a skillfully written adventure tale and well worth reading.
One more genre to go and our Short Story Genre Survey comes to an end. Next week, we'll tackle a horror story.
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