The Bradys and “Brazos Bill” by A New York Detective
January 2019
A nickel weekly from 1905, this is number 346 in the popular “Secret Service” series featuring “Old and Young King Brady, Detectives” which started January 27, 1899, and came out like clockwork every Friday for more than two decades... by which time well more than a thousand issues had been published. The Bradys and “Brazos Bill;” or, Hot Work on the Texas Border has the New York sleuths travelling to a small Texas town on the Rio Grande to find a supposedly kidnapped English gentleman calling himself Sir Archie Watkins, but who is actually a notorious diamond smuggler wanted by the Secret Service for illegally smuggling diamonds worth hundreds of thousands of dollars across the river from Mexico. As it turns out, the phony English gentleman has been captured by a local Texas outlaw named “Brazos Bill” who, naturally, wants the diamonds for himself.
At more than 25,000 words, this novella-sized work of pulp fiction, besides being an interesting and fun read, gives the reader a taste of what the masses were reading in the late 19th and early 20th century time period.
At more than 25,000 words, this novella-sized work of pulp fiction, besides being an interesting and fun read, gives the reader a taste of what the masses were reading in the late 19th and early 20th century time period.