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Title: The Phantom Detective

Subtitle: The Phantom's Phantom

Author: Robert Reginald

Narrator: Todd McLaren

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-06-12

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 1 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Modern Detective

Publisher's Summary:

The time is 1953. The world has changed. Richard Curtis Van Loan has been forced to hang up his mask. But The Phantom Detective is drawn out of retirement by the sudden murder of his longtime friend, publisher Frank Havens; and must then face the greatest challenge in his long career, as he finds himself pursued and hounded by a vicious, unseen assailant, ?The Phantom's Phantom.? The hot, sunny hills of Southern California present a very different problem from the cold, dark-edged streets of the Big Apple. As the bodies begin piling up, Van Loan is driven to the very limit of his resources. Who is The Phantom's Phantom?

©2007 Robert Reginald (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Members Reviews:

A return with mixed results...

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE pulp ran monthly from the early 1930s to the early 1950s, and here experienced author Robert Reginald has given the semi-retired Phantom a new adventure occurring just after the close of his pulp career, in the fall of 1953.

There are a number of anachronisms in slang and cultural reference, and some odd misspellings of words (e.g., "Lugar" for Luger). The murder plot is a bit simplistic and the Phantom solves it by what amounts to pretty routine police work, carefully questioning witnesses, etc. I think you'll identify the murderers before the Phantom puts them on the spot, since the clues are fairly planted, and that you'll also identify the Phantom's nemesis, who has been persecuting both the Phantom and his old pal Frank Havens with mailed threats and seemingly random physical attacks, long before he and his large, equally deranged family make their ultimate play.

There is no mention or use of the Phantom's supernatural skill at disguise and impersonation. Most all the characters have goofy names along the lines of Zinc, Dastrie, Zed Lepplin, etc. I lost count of the number of bystanders who are gunned down whilst standing right beside the Phantom, in the course of the "action" (to use the word loosely), yet he never gets the third degree, or even the first or second, from the cops.

Most incomprehensibly, he reveals to a large group of hangers-around that he, middle-aged playboy Curtis Van Loan, is indeed the Phantom Detective, suicidally setting himself up for hundreds of revenge attacks by hundreds of embittered relatives of the hundreds of bad guys he has mercilessly gunned down over the years... just like the revenge attack that is the subject of this novel!

Finally, the action takes place in California, new to the Phantom, which allows the author to expend about 50% of his pages in uninteresting local color and tedious travelogue.

I got through it, but by about halfway through, my sense of enjoyment had plunged to a fairly low level.

More than one Phantom

It was a great idea to "resurrect" the Phantom Detective, and Robert Reginald was the right man to do it. He uses the familiar "book-within-a-book" device to achieve his purpose, but handles the plot mechanism with deftness of touch and a soupon of irony.

His Phantom is older, wiser and sexier than the original, changes which are discussed in an Author's Note at the end of the novel. He solves his case - several cases, in fact - and unmasks the sinister killer who has been murderously pursuing him.