AUTHOR’S NOTE to Hunt the Avenger (a moonstonebooks.com exclusive release—not available anywhere else!)
My first published Avenger story, “Death and the Countess,” featured what I thought at the time was a throwaway line mentioning a prior adventure with the Domino Lady. I went on to pen two more Avenger tales that actually featured team-ups with the saucy pulp heroine.
- “Death and the Countess,” The Avenger Chronicles (2008)
- “Happy Death Men,” The Avenger: The Justice, Inc. Files (2011)
- “According to Plan of a One-Eyed Trickster,” The Avenger: Roaring Heart of the Crucible (2013)
I was very happy with how the trilogy turned out, and yet it was clear that the three tales were meant to be read together as a whole—not separated by several years as each anthology was subsequently released. A proper reading required the stories to be collected in one volume.
Too, the trilogy always felt a bit imbalanced, with socialite Ellen Patrick—the Domino Lady—only making her “on camera” debut in the second tale. With that in mind, I set out to write the prequel to “Death and Countess,” showing the actual first meeting between Richard Benson and Ellen Patrick. This took a lot of careful planning and review of the timeline (excerpted at the conclusion of Hunt the Avenger) to ensure the continuity lined up—including featuring the black-haired, normal-skinned Benson, as he appeared in the final twelve original pulp novels and Ron Goulart’s twelve Avenger novels from the 1970s (as well as an additional short story by Goulart in 2008’s The Avenger Chronicles).
Throwing caution to the wind, I also decided to remedy the dangling plotlines left by prior scribe Goulart. I penned a fifth tale to wrap it all up in a bow, with the two new stories matching the word count of the original three tales.
The resulting pentalogy should be read together as one saga…Hunt the Avenger!
I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the journey!
Win Scott Eckert
January 2019
