Spy Killer
3/5
()
About this ebook
American Sailor Kurt Reid is a hothead and a hard case—a man who hits first and asks questions later. As scrappy and rough around the edges as Jimmy Cagney, it’s no wonder that when the ship’s captain turns up dead, it’s Reid who takes the rap.
Falsely accused and under the gun, Reid jumps ship and vanishes into Shanghai —only to get caught in a web of intrigue, betrayal, and murder. In a world where nothing is what it seems and everything is for sale, he’s soon out of his depth, drawn into a spy game in which the winner takes all . . . and the loser takes a knife to the back.
Will Reid live up to his reputation as the Spy Killer? He’ll have to learn the rules fast, because with players like the sexy White Russian secret agent, Varinka Savischna, in the hunt, the game is about to turn as seductive as it is sinister.
As a young man, Hubbard visited pre-Communist China three times, where his closest friend headed up British intelligence. In a land where communists, nationalists, war lords and foreign adventurers schemed for control, Hubbard gained a unique insight into the intelligence operations and spy-craft in the region—a knowledge that informs stories like Spy Killer.
“Vividly written, super-fast-paced.” —Ellery Queen
L. Ron Hubbard
With 19 New York Times bestsellers and more than 350 million copies of his works in circulation, L. Ron Hubbard is among the most enduring and widely read authors of our time. As a leading light of American Pulp Fiction through the 1930s and '40s, he is further among the most influential authors of the modern age. Indeed, from Ray Bradbury to Stephen King, there is scarcely a master of imaginative tales who has not paid tribute to L. Ron Hubbard. Then too, of course, there is all L. Ron Hubbard represents as the Founder of Dianetics and Scientology and thus the only major religion born in the 20th century.
Read more from L. Ron Hubbard
Battlefield Earth: Science Fiction New York Times Best Seller Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Under the Black Ensign: A Pirate Adventure of Loot, Love and War on the Open Seas Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Secret: An Intergalactic Tale of Madness, Obsession, and Startling Revelations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Spy Killer
Related ebooks
The Devil—With Wings: An Epic Tale of Fighter Aircraft and British Spy-Craft in War-Torn China Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Orders is Orders Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inky Odds Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Chee-Chalker Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Branded Outlaw: A Tale of Wild Hearts in the Wild West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Falcon Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When Shadows Fall Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Man-Killers of the Air Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beyond All Weapons Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5If I Were You Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Red Dragon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Headhunters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iron Duke: A Novel of Rogues, Romance, and Royal Con Games in 1930s Europe Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Hell's Legionnaire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fifty-Fifty O'Brien Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Destiny's Drum Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lieutenant Takes the Sky Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Yukon Madness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gunman's Tally Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Green God Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Forbidden Gold: An Adventure in Love and Money and the Desire for More Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSabotage in the Sky: A Heated Rivalry, a Heated Romance, and High-flying Danger Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dead Men Kill: A Murder Mystery of Wealth, Power, and the Living Dead Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Blazing Wings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Very Strange Trip Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOne Was Stubborn Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Carnival of Death: A Case of Killer Drugs and Cold-blooded Murder on the Midway Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Trail of the Red Diamonds Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Phantom Patrol: The Story of a Coast Guard Officer, a Drug Runner, and a Sea of Trouble Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sea Fangs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Thrillers For You
The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pretty Girls: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Housemaid Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Good Indians Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Animal Farm Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Leave the World Behind: A Read with Jenna Pick Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Eyes of the Dragon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Billy Summers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Institute: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm Thinking of Ending Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cryptonomicon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sympathizer: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shantaram: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fairy Tale Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Razorblade Tears: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mr. Mercedes: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The It Girl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Whisper Man: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Needful Things Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paris Apartment: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Flight: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Family Upstairs: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Long Walk Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cabin at the End of the World: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finn Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Perfect Marriage: A Completely Gripping Psychological Suspense Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Huntress: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Maidens: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Reviews for Spy Killer
31 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5"Spy Killer" is a classic L. Ron Hubbard story from 1936. Published prior to the wave of espionage novels inspired by Eric Ambler's "A Coffin for Dimitrios" in 1939, Hubbard had anticipated the espionage genre's popularity with this startling tale. "Spy Killer" is a well-written thriller, and readers will encounter the mysterious Russian woman Varinka Savischna. Hubbard's blazing talent is evident in beautiful lines like this: "The steam which rose from her cup of tea was not less illusive than the quality of her eyes." The audio book is outstanding. Each audio book features a multicast performance with music and sound effects reminiscent of radio's golden age. Starring the voice talent of Lori Jablons and featuring R. F. Daley, Shane Johnson, Jim Meskimen, and Tait Ruppert, "Spy Killer" is the perfect audio adventure when your driving long distance.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Spy Killer
The Spy Killer is another one of the pulp fiction stories from L. Ron Hubbard, this time originally published in the late 1930s, before the USA got into World War II, Japan was occupying areas of China and one Kurt Reid was found on the streets of Shanghai, sopping wet and escaping the police.
Why? He's accused of a murder he did not commit, runs into a Russian spy (who happens to be a gorgeous woman, of course) and gets tangled into a conflict between her and a Chinese gangster.
Seems like a complex plot -- it is -- but it flows well at its 88 pages. The pulps usually ran these kinds of stories through several magazines, but here the reader gets to read it all in one go.
The reading is fairly easy, and any words used at that time are clarified in a glossary in the back.
The most gruesome scenes are the torture scenes as fingernails are being ripped out by pliers or guys are getting shot messily between the eyes. Surprisingly graphic tales for the kids of the old days.
Recommended. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Spy Killer Spy KillerL. Ron HubbardGalaxy Press, LLC - 2008ISBN - 10 1-59212-302-3ISBN-13 978-1-59212-302-5From the "Stories of the Golden Age" Series, this is another great Kurt Reid story written by the master story-teller, L. Ron Hubbard.Hubbard originally published the story in the April 1936 issue of Five Novels Monthly. The story's setting in exotic China, with high tales of espionage and spies made it an instant best-seller in the thirties. However, it's wonderful storyline continue to make it a popular work today.With twists and turns that you won't see coming, filled with the quick mind and even quicker actions of its hero, you'll find this a book you won't want to put down. With a hint of romance to soften the razor edge, you'll find Spy Killer thrills readers of many genre's.I give this work a five star rating! And it definitely has my thumbs up!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Most people--if they know the name at all--know Hubbard as "the Scientology guy." But apparently before Scientology, he wrote a ton of books. He wrote mysteries, science fiction and spy tales. Spy Killer is about Kurt, who has been accused of murder. (I'm guessing there's a series about him, because Spy Killer read like being plopped in the middle of someone else's conversation.) To avoid being executed, he's told to kill a traitor...except it turns out the traitor is this woman he just met and who he has feelings for.(It's sort of a long story.)Anyway--this is a fun, short (only 88 pages) story and I would definitely be open to reading more of his stories in the future. It's also impressive how much action is crammed into those 88 pages. (I'm also oddly fascinated by Scientology, but that's a whole other thing.)
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A nice pulp escape story!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Writing: 4.5; Good writing from my first taste of writing from Mr. Hubbard; Theme: 4.0; Kurt Reid is thrown into a thrilling battle for his life when he is captured by a Chinese gang and taken to Japan to kill one of their most hated opponents. He meets up with many interesting characters as his battles for his life; Content: 4.5; There is murder and intense violence within this volume; Language: 4.0; There were at least 5-6 uses of vulgarity within this tome; Overall: 4.0; This was an interesting first read from this author. ***April 23, 2020***
Book preview
Spy Killer - L. Ron Hubbard
SELECTED FICTION WORKS
BY L. RON HUBBARD
FANTASY
The Case of the Friendly Corpse
Death’s Deputy
Fear
The Ghoul
The Indigestible Triton
Slaves of Sleep & The Masters of Sleep
Typewriter in the Sky
The Ultimate Adventure
SCIENCE FICTION
Battlefield Earth
The Conquest of Space
The End Is Not Yet
Final Blackout
The Kilkenny Cats
The Kingslayer
The Mission Earth Dekalogy*
Ole Doc Methuselah
To the Stars
ADVENTURE
The Hell Job series
WESTERN
Buckskin Brigades
Empty Saddles
Guns of Mark Jardine
Hot Lead Payoff
A full list of L. Ron Hubbard’s
novellas and short stories is provided at the back.
*Dekalogy—a group of ten volumes
TitlePgArt.jpegPublished by Galaxy Press, LLC
7051 Hollywood Boulevard, Suite 200
Hollywood, CA 90028
© 2008 L. Ron Hubbard Library. All Rights Reserved.
Any unauthorized copying, translation, duplication, importation or distribution, in whole or in part, by any means, including electronic copying, storage or transmission, is a violation of applicable laws.
Mission Earth is a trademark owned by L. Ron Hubbard Library and is used with permission. Battlefield Earth is a trademark owned by Author Services, Inc. and is used with permission.
Horsemen illustration from Western Story Magazine is © and ™ Condé Nast Publications and is used with their permission. Fantasy, Far-Flung Adventure and Science Fiction illustrations: Unknown and Astounding Science Fiction copyright © by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Penny Publications, LLC. Story Preview illustration and Story Preview cover art are from Argosy and Detective Fiction Weekly © 1936, 1937 Argosy Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted with permission from Argosy Communications, Inc.
ISBN 978-1-59212-617-0 ePub version
ISBN 978-1-59212-646-0 Kindle version
ISBN 978-1-59212-302-5 print version
ISBN 978-1-59212-166-3 audiobook version
Library of Congress Control Number: 2007927545
Contents
FOREWORD
SPY KILLER
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
STORY PREVIEW:
ORDERS IS ORDERS
GLOSSARY
L. RON HUBBARD
IN THE GOLDEN AGE
OF PULP FICTION
THE STORIES FROM THE
GOLDEN AGE
FOREWORD
Stories from Pulp Fiction’s Golden Age
AND it was a golden age.
The 1930s and 1940s were a vibrant, seminal time for a gigantic audience of eager readers, probably the largest per capita audience of readers in American history. The magazine racks were chock-full of publications with ragged trims, garish cover art, cheap brown pulp paper, low cover prices—and the most excitement you could hold in your hands.
Pulp
magazines, named for their rough-cut, pulpwood paper, were a vehicle for more amazing tales than Scheherazade could have told in a million and one nights. Set apart from higher-class slick
magazines, printed on fancy glossy paper with quality artwork and superior production values, the pulps were for the rest of us,
adventure story after adventure story for people who liked to read. Pulp fiction authors were no-holds-barred entertainers—real storytellers. They were more interested in a thrilling plot twist, a horrific villain or a white-knuckle adventure than they were in lavish prose or convoluted metaphors.
The sheer volume of tales released during this wondrous golden age remains unmatched in any other period of literary history—hundreds of thousands of published stories in over nine hundred different magazines. Some titles lasted only an issue or two; many magazines succumbed to paper shortages during World War II, while others endured for decades yet. Pulp fiction remains as a treasure trove of stories you can read, stories you can love, stories you can remember. The stories were driven by plot and character, with grand heroes, terrible villains, beautiful damsels (often in distress), diabolical plots, amazing places, breathless romances. The readers wanted to be taken beyond the mundane, to live adventures far removed from their ordinary lives—and the pulps rarely failed to deliver.
In that regard, pulp fiction stands in the tradition of all memorable literature. For as history has shown, good stories are much more than fancy prose. William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Jules Verne, Alexandre Dumas—many of the greatest literary figures wrote their fiction for the readers, not simply literary colleagues and academic admirers. And writers for pulp magazines were no exception. These publications reached an audience that dwarfed the circulations of today’s short story magazines. Issues of the pulps were scooped up and read by over thirty million avid readers each month.
Because pulp fiction writers were often paid no more than a cent a word, they had to become prolific or starve. They also had to write aggressively. As Richard Kyle, publisher and editor of Argosy, the first and most long-lived of the pulps, so pointedly explained: The pulp magazine writers, the best of them, worked for markets that did not write for critics or attempt to satisfy timid advertisers. Not having to answer to anyone other than their readers, they wrote about human beings on the edges of the unknown, in those new lands the future would explore. They wrote for what we would become, not for what we had already been.
Some of the more lasting names that graced the pulps include H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, Max Brand, Louis L’Amour, Elmore Leonard, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner, John D. MacDonald, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein—and, of course, L. Ron Hubbard.
In a word, he was among the most prolific and popular writers of the era. He was also the most enduring—hence this series—and certainly among the most legendary. It all began only months after he first tried his hand at fiction, with L. Ron Hubbard tales appearing in Thrilling Adventures, Argosy, Five-Novels Monthly, Detective Fiction Weekly, Top-Notch, Texas Ranger, War Birds, Western Stories, even Romantic Range. He could write on any subject, in any genre, from jungle explorers to deep-sea divers, from G-men and gangsters, cowboys and flying aces to mountain climbers, hard-boiled detectives and spies. But he really began to shine when he turned his talent to science fiction and fantasy of which he authored nearly fifty novels or novelettes to forever change the shape of those genres.
Following in the tradition of such famed authors as Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Jack London and Ernest Hemingway, Ron Hubbard actually lived adventures that his own characters would have admired—as an ethnologist among primitive tribes, as prospector and engineer in hostile climes, as a captain of vessels on four oceans. He even wrote a series of articles for Argosy, called Hell Job,
in which he lived and told of the most dangerous professions a man could put his hand to.
Finally, and just for good measure, he was also an accomplished photographer, artist, filmmaker, musician and educator. But he was first and foremost a writer, and that’s the L. Ron Hubbard we come to know through the pages of this volume.
This library of Stories from the Golden Age presents the best of L. Ron Hubbard’s fiction from the heyday of storytelling, the Golden Age of the pulp magazines. In these eighty volumes, readers are treated to a full banquet of 153 stories, a kaleidoscope of tales representing every imaginable genre: science fiction, fantasy, western, mystery, thriller, horror, even romance—action of all kinds and in all places.
Because the pulps themselves were printed on such inexpensive paper with high acid content, issues were not meant to endure. As the years go by, the original issues of every pulp from Argosy through Zeppelin Stories continue crumbling into brittle, brown dust. This library preserves the L. Ron Hubbard tales from that era, presented with a distinctive look that brings back the nostalgic flavor of those times.
L. Ron Hubbard’s Stories from the Golden Age has something for every taste, every reader. These tales will return you to a time when fiction was good clean entertainment and the most fun a kid could have on a rainy afternoon or the best thing an adult could enjoy after a long day at work.
Pick up a volume, and remember what reading is supposed to be all about. Remember curling up