The Lady From Hell: The Nefarious Schemes of Vivian Legrand
Eugene Thomas

    The Lady from Hell (nv) (Detective Fiction Weekly January 19, 1935).
    Bait for Men (ss) (Detective Fiction Weekly January 26, 1935).
    The Episode of the Secret Service Blackmail (Detective Fiction Weekly February 9, 1935).
    The Episode of the Forty Murderers (Detective Fiction Weekly February 16, 1935).
    The Episode of the Grave Robbers (Detective Fiction Weekly March 2, 1935).
    The Episode of the Levantine Monster (Detective Fiction Weekly March 9, 1935).
     The Episode of the League of Death (Detective Fiction Weekly March 16, 1935).
     The Episode of the Sensational Orient Express Robbery (Detective Fiction Weekly April 20, 1935)
    The Strange Episode of the House of Secrets (Detective Fiction Weekly May 4, 1935)
    The Episode of the Pounce of Death (Detective Fiction Weekly May 11, 1935)
    The Adventure of the King of Diamonds (Detective Fiction Weekly September 21, 1935)
    The Adventure of the Maharaja’s Wife (Detective Fiction Weekly September 28, 1935)
    The Episode of the London Queen of Crime (Detective Fiction Weekly October 12, 1935)
    The Adventure of the Dragon Claws (Detective Fiction Weekly October 19, 1935)
    The Adventure of the Headless Statue (Detective Fiction Weekly January 25, 1936)
    The Adventure of the Voodoo Moon (Detective Fiction Weekly February 1, 1936)
    The Adventure of the Cayenne Fugitives (Detective Fiction Weekly February 15, 1936)
    The Adventure of the Dying Dictator (Detective Fiction Weekly February 22, 1936)
    Lady from Hell (Detective Fiction Weekly May 2, 1936)
    A Fortune in Flight (Detective Fiction Weekly June 20, 1936)
    Money-Bed and the Money-Belt (Detective Fiction Weekly July 11, 1936)
    Spanish Prisoner (Detective Fiction Weekly August 22, 1936)
    Treasure of the Bandit Village (Detective Fiction Weekly August 29, 1936)
    Cross Killer and the Golden Bier (Detective Fiction Weekly September 5, 1936)
    The Lady from Hell Returns (Popular Detective April 1938)

    Lost Treasures from the Pulps #50
    Hard Cover, 558 pp.
    ISBN 978-1-55246-982-8   $60.00

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Red-headed Vivian Legrand was an exotic and breath-taking beauty. She fascinated men, and when they babbled their secrets she bled them of their wealth. The rich and influential of three continents were her victims.

She operated a school that trained blackmailers in the art of extortion. Her agents numbered hundreds, for she forced her victims to ferret out the secrets of their friends, and to pay her in information as well as money. Anybody in contact with the rich might be in Vi Legrand’s pay, and the agents she recruited by blackmail included social leaders and public officials and royalty whom the world believed above suspicion!

Herein you will find a series of stories about the exploits of this siren who came from Bubbling Well Road, Shanghai, and flamed across three continents.

About the Author: Eugene Thomas

I don’t know who was kidding whom, but author Eugene Thomas was involved in an odd bit of history of the magazine. Detective Fiction Weekly always had a couple of true stories in each issue. Thomas wrote a "true" story with the catchy name of "The Lady From Hell." The Lady, Vivian Legrand, was a former blackmailer who had even instigated the murder of her father but gained immunity from prosecution by recovering a letter that the British Secret Service had wanted for some time.

Soon the true story section of Detective Fiction Weekly had a Lady From Hell story in every couple of issues, featuring the red-haired, breath-taking siren in yet another intrigue. How could one woman in the less-liberated 1930’s be so involved, written about so often, and still be an effective informant? Well, she couldn’t. The magazine fessed up and The Lady From Hell moved to the fiction section. Did Thomas scam Detective Fiction Weekly or were the editors hornswoggling the readers? It remains a mystery. — Steve Lewis