
by Barye Phillips
From 1957, this Barye Phillips-illustrated cover provides a lesson of how not to ride in a car.

by Barye Phillips
From 1957, this Barye Phillips-illustrated cover provides a lesson of how not to ride in a car.
Throughout the 30s and the 40s, Detective Short Stories offered readers 12 stories for ten cents. That seems like a pretty good deal to me! Today, of course, issues of the magazine cost a lot more but they are still highly sought after by collectors for their covers.
Below is just a small, chronological sampling of the covers of Detective Short Stories!

by Raymond Johnson
This is from 1960. The cigarette and the gun are bad news but I love that dress! This cover was done by Raymond Johnson.

Artist Unknown
Unfortunately, the identity of the artist responsible for this wonderful cover is not known.

by Rudolph Belarski
This cover was done by Rudolph Belarski, whose work I have shared many times in the past and I will undoubtedly share it many more times in the future. That vulture would make me nervous too.
Brendan King (Crawford Wilson) is eighteen and trying to change his life. He’s just gotten out of juvie and is living with his eighteenth set of foster parents, Mike and Vanessa Stubbs (James McDaniel and Lynn Whitfield). Brendan wants to leave his former gang life behind but it’s hard. Vanessa doesn’t trust Brendan and neither does Mike’s best friend, Detective Dwyer (Christopher John Martin).
Brendan wants to help out his old neighborhood by buying the building where his best friend died and turning it into a rec center. But after Brendan makes the news for saving the life of Natalie (Kayla Compton) after she crashes his car, the members of his former gang track Mike down. They know that Mike knows the location of a hidden stash of drugs and they start trying to draw Mike back into his old life.
King’s Faith was made with the best intentions and it had a good message about forgiveness and second chances so I wanted to like it but Crawford Wilson, while easy on the eyes, was never believable as a former drug dealer and addict. There was nothing tough about him and he seemed out of place whenever he was interacting with the members of his former gang. Since I couldn’t believe that he was ever in a gang, there wasn’t any suspense about whether or not he would return to them. Kayla Compton was more convincing as the troubled Natalie and her story was actually more interesting than Brendan’s. The movie probably would have been better if it had been about her.

by Fred Charles Rodewald
This cover was done by Fred Charles Rodewald. Reno Tramp was originally written in 1949. The cover above is from a later edition.

by Rudy Nappi
This cover is from 1951 and was done by an artist who we’ve featured many times in the past and who will undoubtedly be featured many times in the future, Rudy Nappi!