Talking Toad by Lester Dent

Talking Toad by Lester Dent

During his thirty year career, Lester Dent created several outstanding characters, starting with the immortal Doc Savage, but also including>Black Mask's Oscar Sail, Genius Jones, and others. One of the most successful was the Gadget Man, who appeared exclusively in the pages of Street & Smith's>Crime Busters magazine between 1937 and 1939. After Doc Savage, the Gadget Man was the longest running Lester Dent series. And, like Doc Savage, it was a mixture of gadgets, mystery and screwball shenanigans.

Click Rush is an inventor. But the ingenious crime-fighting gadgets he's invented are not wanted by police agencies, who consider them too outlandish and impractical. Enter Bufa. Who is Bufa? No one knows. Not even Rush. But when a papier-m ch radio transceiver appears in his hotel room sitting on one half of a $10,000 bill and the voice emanating from the toad promises the other half if Rush uses his gadgets to solve a crime, the nearly broke inventor could hardly say no. The problem was that every time Rush solves a mystery, Bufa wants him to do it again. And again, and again. And he won't take no for an answer>

Over the course of eighteen screwy stories, the war of wits between the anonymous toad-shaped tormentor and the beleaguered inventor-turned-detective rages. Where will it all end? Not even Bufa knows.

This first volume of Gadget Man stories-most never before reprinted-includes the introductory six stories. Many restored from the original manuscripts. Including a revealing Introduction by Will Murray.