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Phantom Books No. 508. Paperback Original (1952). Digest size. Uncredited Cover Art

“Swamp Kill” by Whit Harrison (Harry Whittington)

 

“Cold Mad Men . . . Thrill-Seeking Women . . . And Brutal Murder In The Florida Swampland!”

 

From inside the front cover:

 

It was stolen money . . . Dirty money . . . A half million dollars’ worth . . . And only one man knew where it was hidden . . . Deep in the heart of Florida’s swampland. Three people wanted it . . . Bart Chesley, who was a big-time crime boss . . . Clarice, who was Chesley’s mistress . . . And Jim Thompson, a strong boy who had worked his way up in the rackets. Jim knew where the money was cached – and was not sharing the secret . . . Even if he had to kill off every one of Chesley’s hired hoods – and Chesley, too . . . Because Jim had plans which included a gorgeous brunette who was anxious to help spend that half million. But greed spreads its nasty tentacles in peculiar ways . . . So four men die in the barren swamps and the dirty, sordid money is carted off by the most innocent suspect of them all!

 

From the back cover:

 

“There was only one thing to do now. Get Evie out of my mind. And I’d do it. There was half a million waiting in that black river for me. I’d have plenty of women. I’d have everything I wanted. I lit a cigarette and looked around me, shivering. It was black dark in the scrub now. Not even the lights of the hotel penetrated up here . . . Loneliness went through me on the chill of the rising wind . . . Evie’s scream broke the forbidding silence, and I was running along the path after her before the first scream died out and the second one began. Screams of terror and pain. I ran blindly, without even thinking of what I was running into . . .”

 

This is the ninth book in the Phantom Book Series published in the USA from 1951-52. The number of Phantom books published in the USA is 14, all original hard-boiled crime stories. Australia also had a Phantom Book Series patterned after the USA series. The Australian series ran much longer and encompassed over 300 titles.

 

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Uploaded on December 19, 2019
Taken on December 18, 2019