When Tigers Are Hunting: The Complete Adventures of Cordie, Soldier of Fortune (The Argosy Library)

Great stories and loved the interaction between characters. Apparently based on real life experiences of the author in some cases. More treasure hunters than heroes, and not overly respectful of other nations and their people, but good stories with lots of action and tight spots. Overall a good read.

Author William Wirt (1876-?), who was credited as just “W. Wirt” with his stories, was active only in the 1920s and ’30s in the pulps for about 10 years, all writing adventure stories.His main works were the Jimmie Cordie series, along with another series with Captain Norcross, as well as several stand-alone stories. In fact, for a several years, he only wrote Jimmie Cordie stories. Not much is known of him, I’m not able to find many details other than a brief bio he wrote of himself, which has been reprinted in recent collections. In reading this bio, you wonder how much is truth and how much maybe stretched.Now Altus Press is reprinting the Cordie and Norcross stories as part of its Argosy Library, with the first volumes of these two series.Jimmie Cordie’s stories ran in several magazines over the years, including Frontier Stories, Argosy/Argosy All Story Weekly, and Short Stories. Few have been collected until now. Cordie and his fellows are soldiers of fortune, and some have said they are an inspiration for Doc Savage. His stories are set in exotic locations like the Far East, Central America, and elsewhere.This first volume reprints the first eight stories, from Frontier Stories and Short Stories magazines, before the series moved mainly to The Argosy. Several of the stories for Argosy were even cover featured, which I’ve noted. The cover for “The Nine Red Gods Decide” was used as the cover for the first volume. I’m not sure how many volumes will be needed to reprint the whole series, but think about three or four more volumes. Also noted a few of stories reprinted elsewhere in fanzines.We meet Jimmie and his associates in these first stories. There is Jimmie, Red Dolan, George Grisby, and Putney. They are all former soldiers, former Legionnaires, former American Expeditionary Forces, and the like. We are told in one story that they have been fighting together for 10 years. In some later stories they are joined by The Fighting Y*d (Abraham Cohen) and The Boston Bean (John Cabot Winthrop).Interestingly, Jimmie doesn’t seem to be the leader of the group. There is no clear leader, and in many of the earlier stories, Red and Jimmie seem about equally important in the stories, and in a few Grisby seems to step up and be in charge. In the later stories set in China, we learn that Jimmie has an in with a Chinese secret society, the Taiping, which helps them in their adventures, so this starts making him more important in the group. I wonder if he becomes more a lead in the later stories, hence naming the series after him and not including others?We meet the four in the first story as they go after jewels in Malay, and wind up helping a British girl escape her captors. In the next, Jimmie is leading the group in capturing a dangerous gang leader in Texas. The rest of the stories take the group to China. In the third story, they are joined by the Bean and at the end of that story the Y*d shows up, and the two come back in the sixth and eight stories.As noted, Jimmie’s connection with the Taiping society is of use. In most they are after some treasure or riches, but not always. In the fifth story they are again after treasure, but get sidetracked in helping a Chinese warlord and his young daughter fight off a coup attempt by the high priest of his city. The sixth story re-unites them with the young girl, now 10 years older, from the first story. Here they help rescue her father taken prisoner by another secret society. The seventh has the group help a Chinese man known by Jimmie in dealing with a yet another secret society. The eighth story, the longest, has the group heading to western China in search of the tomb of the son of Genghis Khan (here written as Jenghiz Khan).I’m interested in seeing how this series progresses. In looking over the future stories, it seems they bounce around to different places, but a lot of the stories seem set in China and areas of Asia. And we’ll get some serials, so it will be interesting to see how this group does in longer stories.