The Black Ghost

The Black Ghost

Creator: Tom Johnson
Characters

Jimmy Malone

Peggy Sue (Simpson) Malone

Ruth Malone

Capt Wheeler

George Freeman

Paula Marsh

Professor Josh Crandall

Hui Yo Chae

Professor Lamont Rogers

In 1994, Officer Malone is killed by a drug gang known as the Black Widows while on patrol, leaving a wife, Ruth, and 14-year-old son, Jimmy. Obtaining a minimum-wage job at a grocery story, they are forced to move into a Housing Projects beset with crime.

Jimmy Malone dons a black hood and, calling himself Compere, sets out to find his father’s killers, at the same time protecting the area around their new home. Thus began the story. Although he had chosen one name, the gangs quickly adopted another to describe this nemesis of the night – The Black Ghost!

During the first story, “The Black Widows”, The Black Ghost is rescued by an elderly couple who were once employed by the government as espionage agents. They take Jimmy under their wing to train him in the deadly fight ahead of him. In the second story, “Hunter’s Moon”, Jimmy is now about 24 and he meets Peggy Sue Simpson, a girl pursued by the mob. They would shortly be married. By thirty, gangsters have come to fear the name of The Black Ghost.

Jimmy Malone is tall, muscular, with blonde hair and blue eyes; he is trained in weapons and martial arts. Now independently wealthy from an inheritance left to him by the elderly couple that once trained him, his stepfather considers Jimmy a pain in the neck for his constant bother at his office.

Peggy Sue Malone is beautiful, blonde and blue-eyed, though she insists on wearing a red wig, which irritates her mother-in-law. But she laughingly explains that the red wig is Jimmy’s idea. Peggy knows that her husband is The Black Ghost, and has often donned the regalia to assist him in his fight against the underworld.

Ruth Malone Wheeler is Jimmy’s mother. She is now married to the Chief of Detectives, Captain Wheeler.

Captain Wheeler is Chief of Detectives. He met Jimmy and his mother when Officer Malone was killed in “The Black Widows”. A patrolman at the time, he has risen in rank to captain, and now runs the detective department. Usually grumpy, drinks two-day-old cold coffee, and his favorite expletive is, “Fiddlesticks!” Has suspicion that Jimmy is either The Black Ghost or has contact with him.

The Black Ghost is dressed all in black. He wears a black cape around his shoulders and a black hood pulled over his head. The hood has tiny lights within the fabric, which can be operated by a small battery. Once they are turned on, a ghostly face appears on the hood. He carries a brace of .45 automatics, either in shoulder holsters or on a belt around his waist, and is ambidextrous. He has several magic tricks literally up his sleeves. A compressed gas container will fill balloons in each sleeve at the press of a button, sending them screaming like Banshees to distract gunmen when necessary. He talks in an eerie whisper, and challenges gangdom with a weird laugh.

George Freeman is tall and broad shouldered. He wears his hair in a crew cut, and has a black widow spider tattoo on one arm. About 38, recently retired from the Army Rangers, skilled in weapons and martial arts, but prefers boxing. Served in Iraq and other hot spots. After retirement, he obtained a job as reporter for the local newspaper and was recruited by The Black Ghost in “Death And The Black Ghost”. Freeman is married to Nancy, who doesn’t know her husband is an agent of The Black Ghost until the story, “Carnival of Death”. She works in a small boutique, owned by Paula Marsh.

Paula Marsh has dark hair, cut in a short bob, with dark, laughing eyes, but they were not always like that. Her husband, a helicopter pilot in Iraq had been killed soon after their marriage. Contemplating suicide one night, Paula attempted to a leap off the roof of a tall building when hoodlums attacked her. The Black Ghost happened along just in time to stop the hoodlums and prevent her from jumping to her death. While being treated in the hospital, George Freeman stops by the room, and she suspects he might be her rescuer the night before. Paula tells him she has a proposition for the man in black. When The Black Ghost does visit her, she offers her services in his fight against crime. Paula was introduced in “Highways In Hiding”.

Professor Josh Crandall is an elderly science teacher at the university, he had assisted the government agents who trained The Black Ghost, now he tells Compere he is training another young man to take his place when he is gone. He was only in “Highways In Hiding”.

Professor Lamont Rogers is a young science teacher at the university, Professor Crandall had prepared to take over as a behind the scenes operative of The Black Ghost. He is introduced in “The Spider’s Web”, and becomes attached to Paula. He is tall and slender, narrow shoulders, not athletic, and is not an active agent.

Hui Yo Chae is a thirty-year-old electronic whiz trying to complete college when her money runs out. Yo is Korean, and she is recruited in “The Spider’s Web” to run Control Central, the new contact and surveillance arm of The Black Ghost. She is a karate expert, but merely operates the monitoring systems, and answer calls coming in from agents and The Black Ghost. She is small and dark haired, with dark, almond-shaped eyes.

There have been more than a dozen novelettes or short novels in the series to-date.
1) The Black Widows (Novelette)
2) Guns of The Black Ghost (8 novelettes)
3) The Spider's Web (Short Novel)
4)  Carnival of Death (Novelette)
5) Invitation To Death (Novelette)