BLACK MASK Stories I’m Reading: C. P. DONNEL, JR. “The Fourth Degree.”

🫧 Open on Bubbles C. P. DONNEL, JR. “The Fourth Degree.” Duc Rennie #2, First appeared in Black Mask , February 1941. Reprinted in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine , December 1953. I don’t know very much about C, P. Donnel, Jr., the teller of this tale, nor his hero Doc Rennie. I believe in fact that this is my first time reading anything by the author. In a post on his Pulpflakes blog , Sai Shankar tells us that Donnel (1906-1977) was “a crime reporter on the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot for a decade before swit