Dime Mystery Book Magazine was begun at the end of 1932 as a sister magazine to Dime Detective, with a novel in each issue.

These were followed in 1932 by Dime Detective, which quickly became one of Popular's most successful pulps, focusing on lurid crimes. The pulp market at the time was changing focus, with detective stories increasing in popularity, so two of the first four magazines launched by Popular were in the detective genre: Gang World and Detective Action. Steeger persuaded Goldsmith to partner with him in starting a pulp magazine publishing company, and the new company, Popular Publications, was launched the following year. In 1929, Harry Steeger was employed at Dell Publishing as a magazine editor, and Harold Goldsmith was at Ace Publications, working as a business manager. The last few issues appeared under the title 15 Mystery Stories. Most of the stories in Dime Mystery were considered low-quality pulp fiction by critics, but some well-known authors also appeared in the magazine, including Edgar Wallace, Ray Bradbury, Norvell Page, and Wyatt Blassingame. There was a brief return to weird menace stories, after which more ordinary detective stories filled the magazine until it ceased publication in 1950. These stories now focused on detectives with some unusual handicap such as amnesia or hemophilia. In 1937 the emphasis on sex and sadism in Dime Mystery 's stories increased, but in 1938 the editorial policy switched back to detective stories. Popular Publications soon started more magazines in the same genre, and weird menace magazines began to appear from other publishers as well. Stories based on supernatural events were rare in Dime Mystery, but did occasionally appear. The new genre became known as ' weird menace' fiction the publisher, Harry Steeger, was inspired to create the new policy by the gory dramatizations he had seen at the Grand Guignol theater in Paris. Under the new policy, each story's protagonist had to struggle against something that appeared to be supernatural, but would eventually be revealed to have an everyday explanation. With the October 1933 issue the editorial policy changed, and it began publishing horror stories.

Titled Dime Mystery Book Magazine during its first nine months, it contained ordinary mystery stories, including a full-length novel in each issue, but it was competing with Detective Novels Magazine and Detective Classics, two established magazines from a rival publisher, and failed to sell well.

Dime Mystery Magazine was an American pulp magazine published from 1932 to 1950 by Popular Publications.

Shudder Pulps by Robert Kenneth Jones