Cargo of Coffins
4/5
()
About this ebook
If Lars Marlin had three wishes, two have already been granted: he has escaped from Devil’s Island … and he has come face to face with the man who put him there—Paco Corvino. But the third wish—putting a bullet in Corvino—will have to wait. They’re off to sea, and not since Fletcher Christian and Captain Bligh set sail on the Bounty have two more heated enemies been in the same boat.
Corvino is a convict, con-man and killer who has schemed his way into a position as chief steward on a luxury yacht sailing out of Rio de Janeiro. And, in a twist as devious as it is diabolical, he’s managed to install Lars—his hated rival—as captain of the very same vessel. And there are even darker twists to come.…
Lars is determined to find out what Corvino has up his sleeve … and what killer cargo he’s hiding on board. But the yacht owner’s daughter proves to be a beautiful—and dangerous—distraction. Will Lars be safe in her arms … or is she part of Corvino’s plot—a deadly trap set with honey?
Like several leading writers of the day, L. Ron Hubbard was invited to Hollywood to write scripts, where his superior talent and productivity attracted numerous lucrative offers from the studios. But, as he wrote in a letter to the editor of Argosy magazine in August 1937: “I love to tie a yarn and try to make it blaze in print. The mags will never lose me to the movies. Never, at any salary!” And as Argosy gleefully responded in its pages: “Next to exorcise the Hollywood virus from his veins was L. Ron Hubbard … he has set to work to give Argosy some more of his rousing yarns. The first, ‘Cargo of Coffins,’ is due to appear in the November 13th issue, and a serial is likely to follow.”
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 stars3/5The Green God Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Final Blackout Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fear Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Great Secret: An Intergalactic Tale of Madness, Obsession, and Startling Revelations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Under the Black Ensign: A Pirate Adventure of Loot, Love and War on the Open Seas Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Cargo of Coffins
Related ebooks
When Shadows Fall Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Chee-Chalker Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sky-Crasher Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Spy Killer Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Orders is Orders Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dead Men Kill: A Murder Mystery of Wealth, Power, and the Living Dead Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Golden Hell Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wind-Gone-Mad Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Under the Black Ensign: A Pirate Adventure of Loot, Love and War on the Open Seas Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Man-Killers of the Air Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Under the Diehard Brand Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Professor Was a Thief Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Iron Duke: A Novel of Rogues, Romance, and Royal Con Games in 1930s Europe Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sabotage in the Sky: A Heated Rivalry, a Heated Romance, and High-flying Danger Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Branded Outlaw: A Tale of Wild Hearts in the Wild West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Military & War Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYukon Madness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Historical Fiction Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sci-Fi & Fantasy Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInky Odds Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Six-Gun Caballero Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sky Birds Dare! Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hostage to Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Falcon Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Black Sultan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shadows from Boot Hill Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Baron of Coyote River Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sea Fangs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cattle King for a Day Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Carnival of Death: A Case of Killer Drugs and Cold-blooded Murder on the Midway Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Hard-boiled Mystery For You
The Perfect Husband: A completely addictive psychological thriller from Danielle Ramsay, inspired by a true story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPromised Land Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Don’t Know Jack: The Hunt for Jack Reacher, #1 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Bullet for Cinderella (Thriller) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Replacements Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Necktie Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hard Fall: A Gripping Mystery Thriller: Thomas Blume, #1 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Death Stalks Door County Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Fourth Monkey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Day the Music Died Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Wendigo: A Thriller Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Librarian: The unforgettable, completely addictive psychological thriller from bestseller Valerie Keogh Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hollow World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hunter: A Parker Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Man with the Getaway Face: A Parker Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cincinnati Kid Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMichael Connelly's Harry Bosch Series Reading Order Updated 2019: Compiled by Albie Berk Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All Shot Up: The Classic Crime Thriller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Savage Holiday Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5To Live and Die in L.A. Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5New Orleans Noir: The Classics Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pulp Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Welcome to the Game Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Drink Before the War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Los Angeles Noir 2: The Classics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Out of Bounds Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Night Listener: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dog on It: A Chet and Bernie Mystery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Colorado Kid Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Neon Rain: A Dave Robicheaux Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Cargo of Coffins
3 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Cargo of Coffins - 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.jpgPublished 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.
Story cover art and illustrations: Argosy Magazine is © 1937 Argosy Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted with permission from Argosy Communications, Inc. 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.
ISBN 978-1-59212-504-3 ePub version
ISBN 978-1-59212-742-9 Kindle version
ISBN 978-1-59212-352-0 print version
ISBN 978-1-59212-170-0 audiobook version
Library of Congress Control Number: 2007927535
Contents
FOREWORD
CARGO OF COFFINS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
STORY PREVIEW:
LOOT OF THE SHUNUNG
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 with a great story.
—Kevin J. Anderson
KEVIN J. ANDERSON is the author of more than ninety critically acclaimed works of speculative fiction, including The Saga of Seven Suns, the continuation of the Dune Chronicles with Brian Herbert, and his New York Times bestselling novelization of L. Ron Hubbard’s Ai! Pedrito!
Cargo of Coffins
CHAPTER ONE