MYSTERY NOVELS AND SHORT STORIES was published by Double Action Magazines, Inc., a Columbia Publications imprint.  Columbia was a second tier pulp publisher.  For two decades, from the late 1930's to the late 1950's, it published a wide variety of pulps in a number of genres--western, science fiction, sports, detective and love--including one hero pulp, the short-lived HOODED DETECTIVE (which lasted three issues, the first of which appeared under the title BLACK HOOD DETECTIVE).  While it may not have ever achieved the financial or circulation success of a Street & Smith or a Popular Publications, it survived publishing pulps longer than either of these 2 houses, until 1960.  This was due in part to Columbia's affiliations.  Columbia was owned, in part, by Louis H. Silberkleit.  Silberkleit, together with another individual, were two of the three owners of Archie Comics.  In the early 1950's, most pulps were distributed by The American News Company.  When The American News Company  folded, most of the other pulp publishers folded with it, since they'd lost their distribution.  Columbia, however, managed to get distribution through the same distributor as Archie Comics, with the result that Columbia carried on long after almost every other pulp publisher had ceased to publish pulps.  In 1960 however, this distributor too dropped them, citing unprofitability, and the Columbia chain was no more.