Ghost In The Asylum

An ambitious reporter looking for her big break. A millionaire recluse looking for a cure. Can they survive a violent, corrupt city?

Vicky Rose is a reporter stuck in the City Hall beat, but she knows she’s destined to cover crime. She sees her chance at a big break when the mayor is murdered in his office.

Reclusive millionaire Brent Gregor has been trapped in a wheelchair since the night a home intruder killed his father. Now, the only thing he cares about is being able to walk again.

The mayor’s murder reeks of mob violence, but all the evidence points to someone else. Vicky knows the only hope of finding the truth rests in Gregor’s hands, but he’s unwilling to help until the one person who might be able to cure him changes his mind…

Ghosts in the Asylum is the first book in the Black Spectre Origins series, detailing the rise of the masked pulp hero The Black Spectre. If you like Agent Carter, the Rocketeer, and The Dark Knight, then you’ll love Roger Alford’s gritty noir mystery that effortlessly combines new pulp with a classic 1930s style.

Ghost In The Asylum (Pulp Hero)

By Roger Alford

Black Hood Press

ISBN # 978-1949352009

Price $9.99 (Paperback)

Price $0.00 (Kindle)

210 Pages

Rating 5-Stars

This is the origin story for The Black Spectre. In 1921 Three-finger Ned Vogal broke into the DA’s home killing the DA and shooting his son. The boy becomes an invalid, no longer able to walk, and his mother is admitted to the local asylum for the insane. Fifteen years later young Brent Gregor is still confined to the wheelchair, and has broken up with the woman he loves, Abigail Wentworth, an aviatrix. Victoria Rose a reporter for the Daily Crusader is struggling to make the newspaper’s crime beat, and constantly sticks her neck out to get a story. A new crime is similar to the one that killed Brent’s father, and Vicky visits him to obtain information, but is run off. Then a gypsy woman, Madame Ouspenskaya brings a magic salvation to Brent in the form of a ring that gives him strength in the legs to walk, as well as mental powers like telekinetic ability and turning invisible. He has his butler call Vicky for another interview and gives her a report he received from a private detective three years before. Vicky reads the report written by the murdered private detective and discovers the truth. Now she must enter the asylum to prove that the killer is being protected. When she fails to show up for a dinner date, her boyfriend calls Brent to see if he knows where she’s at. Now Dennis Morris and The Black Spectre must rescue the girl before something horrible is done to her.

This was a darn good story, featuring an exciting new pulp hero, even if The Black Spectre doesn’t appear until towards the end of the story. The city is controlled by the mob, and mobsters are at war with each other. But police and city officials are in the pockets of the mob bosses. It’s going to take a fighting reporter like Vicky and The Black Spectre to bring the hoods to justice and return their city from corrupt politicians to a crime-free town of descent government and law-abiding citizens. Highly recommended.

Tom Johnson

Author of CARNIVAL OF DEATH