Created by Norvell W. Page
Pseudonyms included G. Wayman Jones, N. Wooten Poge, Randolph Craig & Grant Stockbridge
(1904-1961)
“That grenade must have ruined my guitar. I’ll have to buy a new one.”
Prolific pulpster Norvell W. Page, although he was best known for churning out countless novel-length adventures featuring proto-superhero The Spider for the pulp of the same name, still managed to contribute an impressive number of tales for the crime and detective pulps, particularly in his early, pre-Spider days. Ten Detective Aces, Detective Tales, Spicy Detective, Dime Mystery, Thrilling Detective, Crime Busters–you named it, he probably sold ’em a story or ten.
He even cracked the most prestigious crime pulp of them all, with his full-length novel, Black Harvest, serialized in three consecutive issues of Black Mask in 1933. In fact, it’s said that it was the popularity of the Jules Tremaine stories that likely helped Page land that prestigious, career-changing Spider assignment.
The stories revolves around dapper, guitar-playing and hard-boiled private eye JULES TREMAINE and his on-going battles with the Catrini crime syndicate, and his determination to wipe them off the face of the earth by any means necessary–but mostly, of course, Â through plenty of cold-blooded violence.
Including a nifty guitar trick El Kabong would have approved of.
Or Mike Hammer. Or The Executioner. Or The Destroyer. Or The Punisher…
SHORT FICTION
- “Those Catrini” (February 1933, Black Mask)
- “The Confessional” (February 1933, Black Mask)
- “Black Harvest” (February 1933, Black Mask)
COLLECTIONS
- Black Harvest: The Complete Black Mask Cases of Jules Tremaine (2021)Â Â |Â Buy this book
Includes an all-new introduction by pulp historian Will Murray, and several other early stories by Page.
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
