After the murder of her DA father, beautiful socialite Ellen Patrick dons a white dress, black cape, and black domino mask to fight crime as the Domino Lady. Despite not a lot of original material, the Domino Lady has become one of the most iconic characters in pulp fiction. In Domino Lady: Sex As a Weapon, eight authors write all-new stories about Domino Lady's adventures. Her adventures also give her opportunities to team up with other pulp icons such as the Phantom, Airboy, the Black Bat, and even Sherlock Holmes.The collection begins with K.G. McAbee's "The Domino Lady and the Crimson Dragon". An Asian girl escapes from a white slaver boat and by a lucky string of fate, runs into the Domino Lady, who agrees to help rescue the other girls on the ship. This was pretty standard fare, although quite enjoyable as Domino Lady had to use her wits (and her physical assets, naturally) to take on a large group of adversaries.
C.J. Henderson resurrects the Black Bat to help Domino Lady foil more white slavers in "Blondes in Chains". This took more of a sci-fi bent, and the resolution was a bit contrived.
Not content with Domino Lady working with the police, Bobby Nash frames Domino Lady for murder in "Target: Domino Lady". Again, Domino Lady is forced to use her brains to prove her innocence and bring the real murderer to justice.
Chuck Dixon teams Domino Lady with Airboy in "Stealing Joe Crick". I've never found Airboy very compelling, and he's more or less useless in this story. I had some higher expectations from Dixon, but with Airboy, he didn't have much to work with.
Ron Fortier presents a dumb little tale called "The Claws of the Cat" about some idiotic cat-nappers (yes, really). If this had been played more for laughs, I might have liked it more, but played straight, it was just silly.
Conjuring the spirit of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Nancy Holder presents a tale of Sherlock Holmes teaming up with Domino Lady in his late years. While the plot wasn't anything spectacular, the scenes between Holmes and the Domino Lady were rather enjoyable and provided a lot of entertainment in the couple's banter.
James Chambers's contribution, "The Devil, You Know" was probably my favorite story in the collection. An underworld contact betrays her and Domino Lady finds herself aboard a yacht of Satanists with her identity fully exposed.
Martin Powell finishes out the book with "Masks of Madness", where Domino Lady washes adrift on the Phantom's island. Normally, this wouldn't have been too bad of a story, but the decision was made to reveal the killer of Owen Patrick and end with Domino Lady getting her revenge. This denouement fell a bit flat to me, and I think a revelation that was more conventional would have been more suitable to the character.
As with all anthologies, some of the stories are better than others, but overall, all of the stories were fun reads and maintained the proper tone of the pulps. I would've like solo stories more than the team-ups, but that's really more of a personal preference.
Available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Things From Another World, and Moonstone
Title: Domino Lady: Sex As a Weapon
Editor: Lori Gentle
Authors: K.G. McAbee, C.J. Henderson, Bobby Nash, Chuck Dixon, Ron Fortier, Nancy Holder, James Chambers, Martin Powell
Year: 2009
Pages: 222
