The Black Star (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780809530908)

A master thief who leaves his mark and vanishes without a trace. The city is his playground, and the police his relentless pursuers. Can anyone catch the elusive Black Star?

The Black Star introduces Johnston McCulley's infamous anti-hero, a criminal mastermind who taunts law enforcement with his daring heists and clever escapes. Known for his signature black star symbol left at crime scenes, this elusive figure maneuvers through a world of suspense and danger. McCulley crafts a tale that balances action with mystery, as detectives race to stop a thief who is always one step ahead.

Johnston McCulley (1883-1958) was a police reporter before he became proflic and successful writer for pulp magazines and for Hollywood. His serial, "The Curse of Capistrano", published in All-Story Magazine in 1919, made him world famous the following year when the film version, starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr., was released under the title The Mark of Zorro. The rest, as they say, is history. A total of sixty-five Zorro stories appeared in subsequent decades, along with a great variety of non-Zorro material, in such magazines as Argosy, and West. He virtually invented the masked-avenger genre with such characters as the Green Ghost, the Thunderbolt, and the Crimsoon Clown. His screen credits extended over many years, from Brute Breaker (1919) to The Ice Flood (1926) and Doomed Caravan (1941). "The Black Star" is an exciting tale of crime and adventure, the first in a series.