Lloyd Palmer 11 min read

In the warden's grim office, special investigator Greg Purnell waits as a bell shrills, a phone message passes, and something is quietly set in motion against the escaped quarry.

Lloyd Palmer's 1952 story is a fast space-opera adventure of a manhunt across the worlds. Vivid, driven golden-age pulp. Read it for a rousing pulp chase where a Congress of Earth investigator is loosed on a dangerous fugitive, and the deadly bloodhounds of Zirth enter the hunt.

In its time

Published in 1952, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

11 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).

Illustrated by

Herman B. Vestal