Serialization of Pulp Fiction Stories by L. Ron Hubbard

Read Part 1 of the L. Ron Hubbard story The Blow Torch Murder.

A mystery/detective story that is very unusual in that the detective, Ham, solves the murder without ever leaving his desk once he has visited the crime scene while he takes extensive naps and eats double portions of ham, eggs and apple pie.

L. Ron Hubbard's stories of mystery, detection and investigative procedure—the crime-solving processes he once characterized as "the art of observation"—were exceedingly well wrought, if not numerous, and warmly received from their initial appearance in 1934. Fashioned with Hubbard's fast, spare, vivid style, they plunge the reader into the heart of the action, the inside circle of danger within the maze of crime, always with the delineating sense of reality that epitomized Hubbard's fiction, whatever the genre.

With mystery, as with adventure, he refused to write in a vacuum or to speculate about what could be known. Hubbard would not attempt a story without a working knowledge of his subject or an animating perception crafted from firsthand experience or systematic research. To create an authentic foundation for his detective fiction, he interviewed a wide spectrum of law enforcement officials, police officers and federal investigators. Moving to New York City, the hub of the publishing industry, late in 1934, he struck up a long-term friendship with the city's chief medical examiner, who, Hubbard subsequently recalled, introduced him to the fascinating realities of forensic medicine. "The morgue," the coroner assured him, "is open to you anytime, Hubbard."

This particular firsthand knowledge shows up clearly in stories such as The Blow Torch Murder, whereby a stiff is found in his apartment with a blow torch next to him with which he was apparently murdered in a most gruesome fashion.

Read the first part of this story in this serialization:
THE BLOW TORCH MURDER, Part 1


For other adventure and mystery/detective stories by L. Ron Hubbard, go here:

www.GalaxyPress.com

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