Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 238

# "Hank Hound, the Crescent City Detective"

This detective serial by Anthony P. Morris, subtitled "The Owls of New Orleans," inaugurates its narrative with a crime of abduction and emerging detective mystery. A beautiful young woman named Edna Crystol arrives by packet at New Orleans and is met by a seemingly genteel young man, Percy Desmond, who claims to represent her guardian, Girard Ardway. Desmond lures her into a disreputable neighborhood where she is seized by criminal conspirators. Simultaneously, a mysterious envelope is delivered to Nell Deems, a dry-goods clerk, who then vanishes after receiving it. The story centers on Harry "Hank" Hound, a renowned detective with the New Orleans City Detective Police, whose skills include disguise and relentless pursuit of criminals. Upon a telephone summons to Prytania Street, Hound meets Ardway, the wealthy widower and Crystol's guardian, who recognizes the detective's reputation and engages his services to investigate the mysterious circumstances surrounding these vanishing women.