Mystery of The Matinee Murders

Mystery of the Matinee Murders is now available at Amazon.com in Kindle format.

In Matinee Murders, Republic Studio flack Curly Woods embarks on a public relations road trip that travels the length of California with western film heroes Hoot Gibson and Crash Corrigan, Radio drama thespians Orson Welles and Ray Collins, two lovely radio actresses, a voice impersonator, an announcer and a mute sound-effects specialist. The goal is to entertain at theater Saturday matinees and children’s hospital wards while promoting Republic’s latest serial, The Painted Stallion, and a potential radio mystery presentation, The Man of the Mist. Along the way, they encounter an unknown assassin who leaves a trail of victims killed by cobra venom, a doomed psychic medium who warns of death, and an underground base camp of Nazis who are attempting to build an army of the dead. Western film star Ken Maynard joins the entertainers in an attempt to save a theater full of young fans of the Three Mesquiteers from a fate worse than death. The Hollywood Cowboy Detectives know they must use all of their western skills to defeat an enemy so evil that the future of the life on Earth hangs in the balance - all the while, the unique entertainers must do everything possible to avoid their impulses to strangle each other.

Mystery of the Matinee Murders will soon be the third paperback in the series as (Vol. 1) Mystery at Movie Ranch and (Vol. 2) Mystery of the Arizona Dragon are currently available. Vol. 1 includes the short story Mystery of the Murdered Badman and Vol. 2 includes Mystery of the Stuntman’s Ghost.

The Hollywood Cowboy Detectives series honors the great western and adventure serial stars of silent and talking motion pictures. These stories are written and illustrated in the style of the classic pulps of the 1930s. 

Up Next From Hollywood Cowboy Detectives

Up Next From Hollywood Cowboy Detectives

The Mystery of the Arizona Dragon is currently available on Kindle. The paperback will, hopefully, be out by Christmas with the bonus short story, Mystery of the Dragon’s Revenge. Mystery of the Matinee Murders, along with the bonus short story, Man of the Mist, should be on Kindle at that time and in paperback after the first of the year.

Hollywood Cowboy Detectives

Hollywood Cowboy Detectives

By Darryle Purcell

The illustrated Hollywood Cowboy Detectives (HCD) series, published by Page Turner’s Buckskin Editions, embraces the adventurous world of pulp publishing while also saluting the great western movie serials of the 1930s. The first publication, Mystery at Movie Ranch, is comprised of 12 cliffhanger chapters set in the San Fernando Valley area of southern California during the filming of the 1934 Mascot Pictures serial, Mystery Mountain, starring Ken Maynard.

Sean “Curly” Woods, former Los Angeles Examiner crime beat reporter and current studio flack, is the main character who appears in all HCD publications. In Movie Ranch, Woods’ assignment is to write fluff public relations articles about the serial and its stars and keep Maynard out of trouble while looking into the possible sabotage of the Mascot production.

While helping Maynard battle his personal demons, Woods discovers real enemies are not only targeting the western production, but the American way of life. Joined by western movie hero Hoot Gibson, Maynard and Woods engage in a series of deadly encounters with an army of anti-American terrorists ruled by a sinister mastermind known only as the Viper. The Hollywood Cowboy Detectives deal with organized crime, a sniper attack, aerial combat against an experimental German flying machine, interrogation by a sadistic enemy scientist in an underground stronghold, an ungodly creature who is the product of sadistic experiments, and a variety of battles with those who would eliminate all who believe in freedom and justice.

The Kindle version of the Mystery at Movie Ranch can be purchased on Amazon for $1.99. But for those of us who like our pulps printed in ink on paper, a paperback version of Mystery at Movie Ranch can be purchased at Amazon.com for $8.09, which includes the bonus HCD short story, Mystery of the Murdered Badman. In that short story, Woods works to save Maynard from being charged with the murder of a western-movie villain and abduction and possible murder of a former silent-screen vamp. All HCD publications have color covers and black and white internal illustrations in the style of pulps and adventure novels of the 1930s.

The illustrated Mystery of the Arizona Dragon is also currently available as a Kindle download from Amazon. It will soon be a paperback with the bonus HCD short story, Mystery of the Dragon’s Revenge.

In Arizona Dragon, Woods is sent to a western Arizona dude ranch to investigate problems while the cast and crew of Charlie Chan Goes West prepare for filming. Hoot Gibson, Warner Oland and Keye Luke join the HCD hero as he attempts to track down the source of a variety of deadly incidents.

I spent many years working in daily newspapers as everything from an editorial cartoonist to a managing editor. I also toiled as a government flack for a county in Arizona, an illustrator of educational comic books, young reader books and teaching aids, and a layout and character design artist for Saturday morning television cartoons.