As proof that the pulps are not lightly dismissed, we have a story by MacKinlay Kantor, who later won a Pulitzer for his novel Andersonville. This collection presents his story “The Torture Pool,” which appeared in 1932 in Detective Ficiton Weekly.
Despite the (evetual) credentials of its author, this story returns us to the general status of this collection: Solid, workmanlike, competent, and somewhat forgettable. The last story stood out because it was outrageous. This story, although one of the better ones in the mystery section, is not so outlandishly entertaining.
The story follows a man who runs gift shop in a small, out-of-the-way town that happens to be a tourist spot. His brother had been a hermit who’d amassed a small but respectable fortune through meager living and selling wild herbs, and he had, five years previous, been found dead, apparently killed for his money.
“The Torture Pool” is notable mostly for its atmosphere, capturing as it does the sun-drenched and swampy backwater in which it takes place. Unfortunately, it lacks tension: It follows a cold case, and the killer’s identity is obvious from the beginning. In fact, the story is not about finding out whodunnit but about the protagonist, who already knows whodunnit, finding a creative way to force the killer to confess (the “torture pool” of the title is a pool of quicksand). The climax is a little contrived, but the extensive cultural and environmental details make it engrossing.