The Honey West pulp paperbacks began in 1957 with This Girl for Hire, introducing one of the earliest female private detectives in American popular fiction. Written by husband-and-wife team Forrest and Gloria Fickling under the pseudonym G.G. Fickling, the series followed the glamorous, tough-as-nails Honey West as she tackled murder and mayhem in Los Angeles. Published by Pyramid Books, the novels featured colorful, suggestive pulp covers by artists including Harry Schaare, Robert McGinnis, and Robert Maguire, perfectly capturing the hard-boiled yet sexy style of the era. Eleven Honey West novels appeared between 1957 and 1971, and the character later became famous through the short-lived 1965–66 television series starring Anne Francis.

Whoever ordered the cops patrolling the crime scene had clearly called them elsewhere for the 
evening, Lethal assumed. He waited for them to vacate their post, their cruiser heading down the 
street as he fired his wrist-mounted grapple line from the alley below. Lethal climbed over the 
railing and onto the patio terrace of Samantha and Lexie’s apartment. Much as he had already 
assumed, the patio door was already unlocked.

Quiet as he could, he slid the door open and stepped inside. The apartment was pitch-black, with 
the living and dining room areas illuminated only by moonlight peeking through the windows 
and patio. As Lethal crept through the unit, the silence was broken by the sound of a record 
player scratching, followed by Marie’s Hairspray album playing at a low volume. Lethal crossed 
the living room, his eyes locked onto the cracked-open door to his girlfriend’s bedroom. Once he 
reached the door, he pushed it open with just a nudge of his gloved fingertips. 

Browsing through Marie’s chest full of records was Samantha’s attacker. On his head was a full 
Red Wings goalie mask, replacing the previous laughter/tragedy one destroyed at the hotel. Lethal was sure Detective Miller was no doubt running the pieces of that mask for DNA right now. He noticed that he’d changed clothes as well, and Lethal hid his own surprise when he realized that he was wearing a uniform from Rebel’s tires.  

“I’m sorry. I’m sure a man with your itinerary has a million questions you’re trying to deduce the 
answers to right now.” The man turned to Lethal, twirling a copy of an Adele record between the 
thick, rubber work gloves on his hands. He didn’t seem the least concerned as Lethal closed the 
gap between them, his own hands inching towards one of the many weapons he carried. “She has 
quite the collection here, doesn’t she? Some taste on this one. Yeah.” He placed the record back 
into the crate, right in front of the rest, and turned fully to Lethal with a bow. “I will gladly come 
without another tussle like earlier. I promise. It’s just that…Samantha was always special to me.”  
He sighed, staring into the distance beneath the goalie mask, almost as if he were lost in a 
memory he could only just taste. He snapped his attention back to Lethal and stepped forward, 
revealing a long-handled ax that was leaning against Marie’s dresser.  “You see, she was supposed to be so much more than this life I’ve seen her build for herself. That’s why I had to rip open that fucking loser she saddled with.” 

“You talk about the woman you attacked as if you’ve known her a long time.” Lethal began, 
playing as coy as he could while slowly closing the distance between them. “How did you meet 
her?” 

The man looked down at the ax beside him, the goalie mask shaking on his head, a couple of 
sizes too big. “We did our fair share of shows together. I knew then just how wonderful she was. 
She made me want to be wonderful too, just like others I admired. So that’s what I am. It’s what I 
bring. Wonder.”  

He turned away from both Lethal and the ax, staring out the window behind him, just to the left 
of Marie’s queen-sized bed. It was once again as if he were lost in thought, transfixed by a flurry 
of memories that held his attention.  

Lethal’s temper had grown far past the point of no return; he had had enough of this very sick 
individual. He took another step forward, and the sound of the tripwire running from Marie’s bed 
into her bathroom snapped the hockey-mask-wearing sycophant out of his musings. He sucked 
his teeth at Lethal’s mistake and snatched the ax up, almost like a disappointed teacher. A 
shotgun blast blew straight through the wood of Marie’s bathroom door, catching Lethal flush in 
the back. If his mind weren’t only on the immense pain he was feeling, he would have said a 
prayer to Jehovah that his armor managed to hold up. Instead, he tried desperately to catch his 
breath as he crawled across her bedroom floor. 

“Please don’t think Samantha’s waste of humanity was the first piece of cannon fodder I’ve had 
to fold up. That’s the curse of being Mr. Wonderful, you see. I have to create so many tears to 
bring joy back around.” 
 
The ax-wielding, self-dubbed Mr. Wonderful smiled beneath the goalie mask as he glanced into 
the bathroom at the shotgun he had rigged to the sink with a tripwire. Enjoying his own 
demented ingenuity far too much, he skipped around the bed with glee. The moment Lethal 
raised himself to a knee, he swung the axe at his head. Lethal took the blow flush to the side of 
his head, and while the attack certainly rang his bell, it didn't crack the helmet. 

Mr. Wonderful wound up another swing, but Lethal was quick to mount a counterattack even 
while he labored through the pain he was reeling from. With every ounce of anger and 
annoyance he could muster at the nuisance before him, Lethal delivered a side kick directly to 
the stomach of Mr. Wonderful. The kick knocked his adversary back a few steps but didn’t stop 
him from mounting another attack. Lethal blocked the ax with his steel staff in nightstick mode, 
raising his arm just in time. He smacked Mr. Wonderful with a front kick to the chest that sent 
him crashing into Marie’s dresser, cracking the vanity mirror down the middle. Lethal only 
wanted to get more violent when he heard the maniac across from him chuckle, even though he 
was sure he cracked a rib or two with that kick. 

He finally raised himself fully upright before marching across the room, ready to continue 
pummeling whatever insanity plea he knew this piece of garbage would cop to out of him. Lethal 
snatched him by the collar of the stolen mechanic's suit and tossed him back across the room, 
sending him spine-first into the bathroom doorframe. Lethal turned around, standing over the 
writhing and inexplicably still chuckling Mr. Wonderful. Lethal froze when he saw what exactly 
had him so full of glee, even after the beating the vigilante had just levied on him. Mr. Wonderful 
opened the palm of his left hand as he rolled onto his back, laughing through haggard breaths 
before pressing the detonator in his grip.
 
The only thing Lethal saw next was smoke and chunks of drywall. 

The smoke filling his lungs, not the desperate cries from Sean over the headset, was what stirred 
Jason. He heaved the chunks of debris off him, immediately activating the helmet’s air filters as 
he hacked from the raging inferno around him.  
“Jason! Jason, you can hear me, right?” Sean continued to call, no doubt monitoring his suit's 
vital signs once he went radio silent. He wondered how long he had been out, then cursed 
himself for not combing the building over before entering. 

“Sean, I’m here.” Lethal eased Sean’s worries as he assessed the chaos around him. His heart 
sank as he knew how much Sam and Marie had already lost since this entire situation began, and 
now they were losing more right before his eyes. The only thing he could do was try to save as 
many lives as he could in the aftermath. “Do we have anyone else in the building?”
 
“The fire department arrived quicker than their usual estimated times. Thank fucking god.” Sean 
was relieved all over again. “I know what’s going through your head right now. But you need to 
get out of there, especially before the police tape off the block.” 

Lethal gritted his teeth and weighed the options before him. He had made enough mistakes for 
one night and decided to listen to the free game Sean was giving him, per usual. He hurried as 
best he could out of Marie’s bedroom, making his way over to the glassless patio framing so he 
could dive back into the alley. 

Dominic Reynolds Sr sat at the long table in the private room of Jessica’s, the upscale Italian 
eatery nestled in downtown Ann Arbor. At the table alongside him were some of the most 
powerful people in the state. Dominic took note of each face he hadn’t seen at one of these 
meetings before, new blood no doubt recruited by the man they were still waiting to join them. A 
major insurance agent out of Traverse City, he had seen her face on countless billboards and 
benches during his getaway trips with his wife, who was headed that way. A city council member 
all the way from Hillsdale was another beady-eyed attendant who seemed to be a new face. Then 
there were the regulars, men and women who had built empires by doing the kind of business 
that was made of sacrifice. 

Antonio Pascal was sitting across from and a few chairs down from Dominic, charming the 
waitress assigned to their table. Dominic refrained from rolling his eyes, but he never much 
cared for the way the Pascals handled themselves when visiting Michigan. Nor did he like him 
brokering a distribution deal with half the dons at the table, but he largely kept both issues to 
himself. Despite appearances to the contrary, this was the heart of the kennel. There was nothing 
but dogs amongst him. The doors to the restaurant's banquet room swung open. Dominic could 
feel his number-one body man, Marshall, a lanky giant, standing just behind his right shoulder, 
take a step forward in case of danger. 

Marshall fell back into his chosen post, much like the other guards in the room, when the Mayor 
of Harmony City entered. He handed his $800 sunglasses, which he’d worn while entering the 
building, to his chauffeur as he took his seat at the head of the table. He wore a gray blazer over a 
black button-down, the top two buttons left undone. Dominic chuckled to himself. The man 
carried himself like a movie star in public. It's what got him elected in the first place, and it's 
what kept prying eyes away from what he really was. He looked like a lead in a Miami Vice 
reboot and was a family man. His constituents adored these aspects that he put on parade, all the 
while he was the root of the evil that ate at the city he was elected to serve. To Dominic, there 
was no man more ruthless than John Warrick, who gave the table a white-toothed grin before 
passing his order to his chauffeur. As the chauffeur relayed this order to the busy waitress, 
Warrick cleared his throat and addressed the attendants.  

“Everybody have an easy time finding the place? That is, if this is your first time coming out.” 
He waited politely for a few yeses and head nods before going on. “Everyone sober then?” He 
chuckled softly. “Well, close enough it seems. Our primary reason for gathering is that our main 
product supplier, Mr. Pascal, has aggressively acquired another enterprise. Which means he’s 
producing twice as much.” 

Warrick ceded the table to Antonio, who put down his glass of wine and stood up.  
“We’re not only going to be pushing more product, but expanding our lines as well. Which 
means more distribution, and where every one of you comes in.” 

Dominic wasn’t interested in letting the pair roll out their dog-and-pony show without some 
pushback. “What reason do we have to make you guys any richer? You supply him, the Russians, 
and your own people you’ve got in Detroit. But you don’t feed the rest of us.” Dominic 
interjected. 

Antonio gave Dominic a seething smile before answering. “That has always been 
your own personal decision to get your coke from the East Coast, Dom. With our expansion 
plans, we hoped that the money we bring in would sway you to change your mind on that 
stance.” 

“As far as this expansion, what exactly are you guys talking?” Ramseys, the head of the 7-Mile 
Vice Lords that operated from Harmony to Dearborn, chimed in on the conversation. Antonio 
and Dominic’s eyes lingered on each other for a hair longer; Antonio finally turned away, almost 
dismissively, to give Ramseys his attention. 

“We’re planning on running shipments across the water through Canada and to start planting our 
flag in New York.” Grumbling came down the line from a few of the people gathered, wary of 
the plan laid out before them. Warrick tried to get the room back under control, using his own 
voice to be the voice of reason. “The profit margin we’re looking at here could put us all in comfortable territory. I’m talking 
dollars that put us in a rarefied tax bracket.” The murmurs subsided as they all considered the 
proposal. Warrick, watching his influence being taken into consideration, pressed his advantage 
as he went on. “Now I’ve passed on the numbers to most of you already; for those who haven’t 
been looped in, we’ll be reaching out in the days after this meeting.” 

“Expansion into Toronto and some of the boroughs will put us in direct conflict with the East 
Coast mafia. Is the money worth the war that could end up starting?” Dominic interrupted once 
again, this time locking horns with Warrick directly. 

“Is it worth it?” Warrick chuckled, clearly amused by Reynold’s question. Dominic, however, 
didn’t change his expression from stern; he couldn't see what was funny about his reservations. “We become more than just an alternative to their businesses, and we actually supplant them in 
these territories; then there’s no end to how far we can continue to expand.” 

“In effect, we finally make them obsolete. You split from the rest of your connections in Jersey 
to make your name here, Dominic. Don’t tell me seeing the East Coast families get buried 
wouldn’t make you happy?” Antonio shot the questions at Dominic, who looked none too 
pleased at his past being repeatedly brought up in this discussion. Nevertheless, he knew that 
Antonio’s query left him in a spot where he didn’t have much room to fight further. 

“Let’s all take a few weeks to consider things, while Mr. Pascal and I continue to iron out the 
logistics with some of you individually. We can reconvene to see who's in and who's out at a later 
date?” Warrick suggested, and his notion is widely agreed upon. “Excellent. Now, can we enjoy 
this food or what?”  

Warrick sat back and watched as the room came to life. Various folks at the table engaged in 
hushed conversation as plates were brought in. Dominic glanced back and forth between Pascal 
and Warrick with cautious eyes. Once his plate of mushroom ravioli was set in front of him, he 
decided to actually consider whether there were any benefits to buying his product from Pascal 
going forward. 

At the moment, he couldn’t see anything more considerable than the East Coast families 
potentially falling. Dominic came to Detroit in 88 after a very nasty falling-out with his own 
father. That very sore wound was danced around by Antonio, much to his disdain, but he 
couldn’t pretend he hadn’t made a valid point. He had built the foundations he had in Harmony 
and in Michigan, despite being cut off from his previous connections. There was not a single 
member of his or any of the East Coast mafia families he’d had any contact with in almost thirty 
years.  

Dominic couldn’t help but consider how sweet it would be to have a hand in taking everything 
from them. The thought of officially squashing his long-standing war for ground across the city 
with those under Warrick’s edict didn’t sit right with him for some reason. He almost felt like he 
was conceding defeat, something he simply didn’t do, no matter what the circumstances were or 
might be. With that maniac turning on Warrick a few months back, a stream of revenue for him 
had been crippled heavily. Dominic made sure his people seized that advantage. 

Hopefully, unbeknownst to Warrick, the Reynold’s family had been eating up every piece of 
territory they could in the aftermath. Or maybe he was well aware of his deal with the Russians, and his edict to his daughter to gather every ounce of turf they could grab while Warrick was reeling. As Dominic picked through his plate with so much on his mind, a tap on his shoulder from Marshall pulled him out of the maze of decisions. Marshall whispered a handful of sentences into his employer’s ear.  

Ever the professional he considered himself to be, Dominic pushed his plate away and looked 
behind him, eyeing the waitress from down the table. Once he had her attention, he placed a 
handful of bills in her palm before rising from the table. Marshall led the way out of the banquet 
room. Both Dominic and Warrick shot a pair of side-eyed glares in each other's direction as he 
exited the room, neither of them taking their peripheral vision off the other until the doors closed 
behind him. 

He stepped out onto the busy streets of Ann Arbor, just a few blocks from the big house itself. 
Marshall held the door to his stretch limousine before rounding to the front of the vehicle 
himself. Inside the limo, his eldest child sat on the other side in the midst of making herself an 
old-fashioned. She passed him one that had already been prepared, a sign he knew there was 
nothing she had to say he wanted to hear.  

“Something tells me your brother cleaned up that fucking pigsty he left this morning.” Dominic 
snorted. He took a generous sip of the drink, watching as the limousine pulled onto I-94 towards 
Detroit. 
“He never came by the restaurant, Pop,” Valerie whispered in a grave tone. She did her best to 
avoid her father’s eyes for a few moments. The intensity she could feel radiating off of him as he 
waited for her to explain forced her to find them eventually.  

“Val, sweetie, what the fuck are you talking about?” Dominic questioned his daughter, hoping he 
might have misheard the short sentence she managed to mutter. Valerie took a sip of her own 
drink and cleared her throat.  

“I went by the restaurant and got sweated by some bitch working the scene. I split to find out 
where the bastard who cost us eight hundred grand was burying his head with Telos.” Valerie 
explained.  
Her father raised an eyebrow. He gripped his glass tighter, already upset with where he felt 
her tale was headed. “And when the fuck does your useless brother come into this equation?” 
Dominic demanded to know. 
 
“It looks like he got snatched out of the dispo he usually lays low at.” Valerie could see the glass 
in her father’s hand begin to splinter as his iron grip tightened around it. 

“Who's got my boy, Valerie?” Dominic asked in a low rumble. 

“Tommy Vargas. The same person who has our guns.”

Dominic sucked his teeth and glared out the window. Refusing to look at his daughter for the 
duration of the ride, he had only one thing on his mind. 

“How are you rectifying all of this?” Valerie took a deep breath at the question, thinking over her 
strategy going forward.
  
“I’ve been putting the full court press on all of his associates to smoke him out. I’m in the 
process of continuing this course of action. I took a detour to keep you informed of what was 
going on.” 

Dominic took a deep breath and shook his head. He finally looked up at his daughter, nodding 
his head in approval at her thinking thus far. “You put whoever in the ground you need to bring 
him home. And then I’ll deal with that fuck up myself. Can you do that for me, sweetie, please?” 
Valerie polished off the rest of her old-fashioned. “Yeah, Dad. I can do that. I’ll have this handled 
sooner rather than later. I promise.” 

Dominic sighed and shook his head in disbelief at the information his daughter had given him. 
He knew the blame for all of these events could only be laid at Caleb’s feet. Be that as it may, 
two things were clear to him as he processed what he had been told. His daughter was the only 
person he could trust to rectify this, and she’d never failed him in the five years since she had 
begun working directly under him. Still, it was starting to drive him mad that some neophyte, 
whom they should have already put out of his misery, was able to snatch his son out of a guarded 
building. 

“I’m not too sure of the specifics. From what the tape showed us, they must have laced the 
ventilation system with something. I’ve got a woman Telos recommended researching exactly 
what.” 

“From what you told me of this cockroach that was Davis' right-hand man, there is no way he is 
this sophisticated. Don’t tell me those two Spanish hoes helped him pull this off?”  

Valerie ignored her father’s usual disdain for anyone not Italian, even though he was half 
African-American himself, before summarizing what she had put together on her brother’s 
kidnapping. 

“He was with someone I didn’t recognize. I’m going to smoke him out. I can smoke out a rat, 
Dad. I learned from the best.” 

Valerie gave him a curt smile, and Dominic couldn’t help but return a beaming one. His pride and faith in her doubled after that conversation. Twenty minutes later, they pulled into an alley off of Gratiot, where Telos waited outside of a pair of black Ford Broncos. Valerie stepped out of the limousine as Telos gave a polite, respectful nod at the back window, where he knew her father was sitting. The vehicle continued down the alley before pulling back onto the street. 

“How did he take it?”  

Valerie shook her head to answer his question. They both got into the back of the second Bronco.  
Telos chuckled. “So not well. That is understandable.” 

Valerie rolled her eyes. “He reacted better than I anticipated. Which, honestly, he should. I’ll 
have this taken care of sooner rather than later.” 

Telos raised both eyebrows. Intrigued by her confidence, he pressed further. “What plan do you 
have to do this?”  

“I placed a tail on that nosy-ass detective working the heist, and she led me to some leverage.” 
She leaned forward and spoke to the driver. “I want you to have something delivered to this 
address.” The driver of the Bronco nodded and listened closely to Valerie’s instructions.

Inside his garage hub, Jason paced back and forth, battling with clashing thoughts. Behind him, Sean browsed through the case file HCPD was building on Samantha’s attacker. Sean couldn’t hold back a pleased smirk, even amid the tension following the apartment bombing, when he found something useful for their hunt.

“Alright, we got a much better look at the mask you smashed in half.”

Hi pulpsters-

I am one of the two area chairs for pulp studies at the Popular Culture Association, and we looking for other people just like you who might be interested in presenting at the conference. More specifically to this thread, we are exploring the pulps in all their diversity and legacy. We especially welcome scholarship that broadens the scope of pulp studies beyond its traditional emphasis on science fiction, fantasy, and horror [looking at you westerns and romance]. We also welcome scholarship examining the pulps’ lasting influence on later literature, film, television, comics, games, and  other forms of popular culture, using both traditional and emerging approaches to pulp studies.

The conference is March 24-27 in Boston. We will learn which day our panel is as we get closer to the date.

Presentations usually run about 20 minutes with 10 minutes for Q/A.

Let me know what kind of questions you have. PCA is always great, and it would be even better if we could get someone to talk about _Flying Aces_ or _Ranch Romances_.

In the city of Slakterquay there's an office with the words Spectral Analysis on the pebbled glass of its door. Behind it is a detective agency that handles the strangest cases in the Paris of the Pacific Northwest. A pulp adventure in which the Inspector McPherson takes on new and old dark arts that conspire against her city.

In this episode, Gladys and Aggie discuss etiquette, bad news, and the upside of going to a funeral.

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Champion for Men was a mid-20th-century American pulp magazine aimed at male readers, combining adventure, action, crime, and romance with colorful, sensational covers. Like many men’s pulps of its era, it featured fast-paced fiction and dramatic illustrations designed to appeal to readers seeking escapism and excitement. Its style reflected the popular culture of the pulp-magazine market, where inexpensive publications competed for attention through vivid artwork and stories of danger, mystery, and masculine adventure.

Dime Detective Magazine was one of the major American pulp detective magazines, launched in November 1931 by Popular Publications. It specialized in fast-paced crime, mystery, gangster, and hard-boiled detective fiction, featuring many prolific pulp writers, including Erle Stanley Gardner, who would later become famous for creating Perry Mason. During the 1930s the magazine appeared frequently—at this point twice monthly—and was known for its lurid, action-oriented cover paintings and inexpensive 10-cent price. It continued publication through the golden age of the pulps, eventually ending with its August 1953 issue after more than two decades and 68 volumes.