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Shell Scott

kevinburtonsmith

Created by Richard S. Prather
(1921-2007)

“Shell Scott should be in the Top Ten of any readers list of favorite private eyes.”
— Robert J. Randisi

Richard S. Prather’s SHELL SCOTT was, without a doubt, the second most commercially successful private eye of the fifties (over forty million books sold!). He appeared in a long string of over three dozen Fawcett/Gold Medal PBOs, collections and countless short stories, and even lent his name to the short-lived Shell Scott Mystery Magazine. Carrying on in the screwball tradition of such eyes as Bellem’s Dan Turner and Latimer’s Bill Crane, the Scott stories were smirky, outlandish, innuendo-laden, occasionally alcohol-fueled, off-the-wall tours-de-farce that, depending on your point of view, were either a laugh riot, or a lot of adolescent, sexist swill and hackwork. The latter viewpoint seems to be the dominant one today, and Shell Scott seems to have slipped out of the public conciousness.

Too bad.

But Hollywood eye Shell, at 6’2″, with his teal blue suits, bristly white-blonde buzzcut and almost white eyebrows, broken nose and a chunk of his left ear missing, tooling around in a canary yellow 1941 Caddy convertible, is still kinda hard to ignore.

As originally envisioned, Scott was pretty much a typical disciple of the post-war Spillane school, a tough-talking, mean streets-walking grim alpha male with a P.I. ticket and a gun. It soon became apparent, though, that Sheldon was a little different from the other boys.

The 6′-2” ex-Marine didn’t so much go down those mean streets as strut. For one thing, Scott had remarkably little angst, and there were several other traits that must have raised a few private eyebrows back at the lodge.

Oh sure, Scott did the job, and the bad guys got theirs, and when the going got tough, Scott was more than willing to rise to the occasion. But the usual sex-and-violence was considerably lightened by a sort of goofy, relentless hedonism. Unlike so many other of his dour-faced compadres, Scott seemed to actually enjoy life, his main concern not so much vengeance or justice as keeping an eye open for the next good time. The next martini. The next babe. And, judging by the numbers, a lot of readers, both male and female, were more than willing to follow him on that quest.

And as the series progressed, the wisecracks and double-entendres multiplied and things just got wackier and wackier. In Way of a Wanton (1952) for example, Scott escapes the bad guys by swinging from tree to tree – au naturel — through a jungle movie set. But it was with the eighth book, Strip for Murder (1955) that Prather and Scott finally, truly found their niche.

Strip for Murder is a full-out hoot, a screwball masterpiece, a loopy romp that features our man undercover at a nudist colony and culminates with a naked Scott landing a hot air balloon in downtown Los Angeles (let’s see Lew Archer pull that one off!). From then on, almost anything went in the series.

The Wailing Frail (1956) kicks off with a woman answering the door Scott’s just knocked on as “nude as a noodle.”

In Gat Heat (1967) he attacks a gang of blackmailers armed with a crossbow.

In The Trojan Hearse (1964) he rides a wrecking ball through the wall of a building while in hot pursuit.

In The Cock-Eyed Corpse (1964) he disguises himself as a prop on a movie set, which gave rise to one of the most memorable lines in crime fiction when a thug exclaims “You won’t believe this but that rock just shot me in the ass!”

There were — as I mentioned earlier — lots of comely lasses in the Shell Scott books, most of them skimpily clad and obliging. And well-endowed, which inevitably got Scott’s attention. Despite all the nudge-nudge wink-wink, though, there was very little actual sex in the books. It was all off-stage, Scott too much the gentleman to kiss and tell. Though he didn’t mind looking and telling:

“…she’d just turned twenty one, but had obviously signaled for the turn a long time ago…. she wore a V-necked white blouse as if she were the gal who’d invented cleavage.”
— Always Leave ’em Dying

“Her breasts were so full and firm and abundant that each of them might have been both of them”
— Everybody Had A Gun

“There was a lot of her already in the room before the rest of her got in”
— Everybody Had A Gun

“This was one lovely who looked as if she could be grateful to excess. And some excesses I’m excessively fond of.”
— Darling, It’s Death

“Lita was a gal so female that she made most other females seem male.”
— Take a Murder, Darling

Mind you, Scott did occasionally notice the world around him, particularly Los Angeles. He’s no Chandler, but…

“It was one of those rare, completely smog-free days when you can see Los Angeles from Los Angeles. Often you can’t find City Hall unless you are in it.”
— Always Leave’em Dying

“I think they lease Rodeo Drive by the carat rather than front foot.”
— Kill Him Twice

Prather was the most successful P.I. writer of the 50s with the obvious exception of Mickey Spillane. In a Publishers Weekly book called 70 Years of Best-Sellers, there was a chapter on best-selling mysteries (i.e. mysteries that had sold a million or more copies). 150 books were listed. 16 of them, more than 10% of the list, were by Prather.

And he was also prolific in magazines. Prather’s work appeared in Shell Scott Mystery Magazine (naturally), but also Manhunt, Cavalier, Thrilling Detective, Menace, Justice, Accused, Suspect, Murder!, Ed McBain’s Mystery Book, Adam, Escapade, Man’s World, Swank, For Men Only, Tiger, Caper and numerous anthologies. Many of them were adaptions of current or soon-to-be-released Shell Scott novels, along with the occasional original short story.

FURTHER EVIDENCE

UNDER OATH

THE ULTIMATE TRIBUTE #1

THE ULTIMATE TRIBUTE #2

NOVELS

 

COLLECTIONS

OMNIBUS EDITIONS

SHORT STORIES

ALSO OF INTEREST

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Thanks to Jim Doherty for his help, and the legendary Dean Davis for his word to the wise…

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