Loring Brent's The City of Stolen Lives

The City of Stolen Lives is Altus Press’s first collection of Peter the Brazen stories by Loring Brent. Brent was actually George F. Worts (1892-1967) who wrote pulp fiction under several pen-names and later wrote for slick magazines as well. This collection includes three Peter the Brazen stories originally published in the pulp magazine Argosy late in 1918.

Peter Moore, who becomes known as Peter the Brazen, is a wireless operator on a ship. Worts himself had worked in such a capacity and it seemed like an interesting and promising occupation for the hero of a series of adventure tales set in the East. In 1918 radio was still a new and exciting technology.

Princess of Static, published in Argosy in October 1918, is the first of the Peter the Brazen stories.

Peter Moore has decided to give up his position as a ship’s radio operator. He changes his mind after a strange encounter in Chinatown. A woman’s face glimpsed in a window and a scrawled message lead him to think that something odd is going on and that a woman may be in danger.

He sets sail on the Vandalia, bound for Shanghai. Two women come aboard at the last moment. Moore picks up some odd wireless signals and some unexpected static. Static is never unexpected, but this seems different somehow. And then there’s the matter of stateroom 44. It’s empty, but he knows it can’t be.

The plot, as it is gradually revealed, is very simple and straightforward but it’s enough for an adventure short story. There’s a reasonably effective atmosphere of menace and mystery. And radio does play a key part in the story.

The novella The City of Stolen Lives, dating from late 1918, is a follow-up to Princess of Static. As a result of the events in that story Peter Moore has acquired a mission in life, and a deadly enemy. The enemy is a man known as the Grey Dragon.

After meeting, quite by accident, a young American woman named Amy Vost, Peter takes a job as radio operator on a river steamer. The skipper is an old friend, Bobbie MacLaurin. Bobbie is hopelessly in love with Amy Vost. Peter is enchanted by Amy but his heart belongs to another.

Amy is one of two passengers on the river steamer Hankow.

Once again radio plays a key rôle. Peter picks up a message on a wavelength that nobody ever uses, if fact in normal circumstances nobody can use it. But for some odd reason the Hankow has the equipment to receive such a signal. The messages are cryptic, to say the least. They do however seem to be decidedly sinister.

Again the author doesn’t go in for excessively complicated plotting. He keeps the action moving along and ensures that Peter Moore will have countless dangers to face in the fulfilment of his quest.

The novella Bitter Fountain seems a bit more ambitious. Peter gets involved with two more women and they might perhaps be of the femme fatale type. Romola Borria claims to be in need of help, which may be true. Or there might be more to it. She might be an unwitting pawn of the Grey Dragon. She might be an all-too-willing servant of that mysterious sinister figure. She might be a clever schemer with her own agenda. Or she might really be an innocent damsel in distress. Peter is fairly hopeless when it comes to pretty women. He’s always wanting to rescue them.

Having mysterious possibly dangerous female characters makes this a much stronger story. There’s also more of a sense in this story that Peter really could have embroiled himself in something truly nasty that he doesn’t fully understand.

Once again much of the action takes place at sea and having the protagonist a radio expert is still important.

These stories are not quite in the same league as Theodore Roscoe’s Far East adventure tales but they move along at a brisk clip, there’s plenty of action and there’s a suitably sinister villain. I believe that Peter Moore’s battles with the Grey Dragon continued in several further stories. The three stories in this collection are so closely linked that they can be regarded more as a long episodic novel.

Peter is a likeable enough hero and he’s no superhero. He makes a few mistakes. He’s impetuous. His judgment is terrible when it comes to women. He’s brave and determined but we worry about his fate because we know he’s far from invulnerable. Romola Borria is glamorous and nicely ambiguous.

There’s some fine use of the shipboard settings. On the whole this is a collection that should please fans of pulp adventure fiction. There are better such stories but these offer a good deal of enjoyment. Recommended.