Origin
Before Emma Peel, Before Honey West* there was Lesley Shane a British detectrix** who investigated crimes both foul and fantastic from 1952 to 1954. A private investigator who brought the required toughness, attention to detail and keen eye for the facts to the job, as well as bring a woman’s intuition, and a stylish fashion sense.
On top of that she was athletic, knowing how to both fence, ride and handle a firearm, as well as being agile enough to, in one case, take on the part of a circus acrobat, and brave enough to look for clues at the bottom of the ocean in a bathysphere, or “man” a machine gun when under attack in another.
Her arch-enemy was The Mastermind, a man with too much knowledge and too few scruples.
* but not before Black Canary
** don’t get exited, that’s just old speak for “female detective.”
Creators
Starting as a newspaper strip by British artist Oliver Passingham Lesley Shane ran for about 3 years, at the same time she was often featured in Amalgamated / Fleetway’s Super Detective Library in both collections of the newspaper strips and original stories for S.D.L.
Unfortunately it seems that Lesley was just a bit ahead of her time and both the newspaper strip and her comic book adventures soon ended so that today she is all but forgotten.
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