Dark Lantern Tales: 9 books

On a dark evening in 1890, a murderer strikes in the middle of New York City’s Washington Square Park. Seemingly no one has seen the attack. Both the police investigators and private detective Joe Phenix are at a loss as to how they can proceed. However, Joe Phenix begins to get tips from a veiled...

In 1878, barely a dozen years after the American Civil War, this origin story of The Joe Phenix Detective Series was published as a serial in the New York Saturday Journal. This is Historical Fiction written when it was simply...Fiction! These are very early stories about a two-fisted detective tracking...

It is 1883, and a patrolman making his midnight rounds in New York City’s Battery Park finds a dead man in the middle of a quiet carriage-way. Looking up from his grim discovery, his startled gaze rests on a bat-like spectre the size of a man, perched on a nearby structure. So begins a pursuit that...

Within the palatial home of the leading Wall Street “Money King,” a concealed extortionist seeks a fortune from the magnate. The police detectives can’t discover any suspects, so the obvious choice is to secretly employ the best sleuth in New York City. At his office, Joe Phenix receives an...

There was a suspicious death, a marriage proven to be a sham, a grave disturbed at midnight, and all before Detective Joe Phenix has even entered the case! Soon, in an underground New York City meeting place, an extensive criminal enterprise is revealed and infiltrated. And, the plot has only begun...

1881, New York City, and the word on the street pointed to the Wolves as the worst of the worst gangs. Their captured leader was sent to Sing Sing State Prison up the Hudson river, but made an astonishing escape. The frustrated police superintendent calls in private detective Joe Phenix to hunt the...

It is San Francisco, California in the early 1870s, and a British gentleman arrives to fulfill his dead brother’s legacy by finding his brother’s long lost child. This child would now be an adult in their twenties and if they can be found, the gentleman will award them an inheritance of Five Millions...

A celebrity suicide turns out to be murder, the will can't be found, and the heirs are subjected to multiple extortion plots. Joe Phenix is retained and begins a long and dangerous hunt with his assistants and disguises. Vengeful miscreants perpetrate two parallel plots on the grieving family, and...

Carrying a peculiar container strapped to his belt, a man travels to New York City from the wild mining territory of Arizona. Just before he can deliver the strange piece to the recipient, he is struck down by two thugs. A succession of people take possession of the strange cylinder, and each suffers...