Doc Egg

Created by Day Keene
Pseudonym of Gunnar Hjerstedt
Other pseudonyms include Lewis Dixon, William Richards, Daniel White, John Corbett & Donald King
(1904-1969)

Are you frickin’ kidding me?

I’ve occasionally stretched the boundaries of the definition of what a private eye is to the breaking point on this site, but this?

A “bright-eyed, bald little man in his late thirties with the suspicion of a paunch”? A pharmacist?

What the frickin’ frick?

But wait!

DOC EGG isn’t your average pill pusher–he’s an ex-prizefighter and shit magnet who knows what’s what, and can more than handle himself. He only chucked the fine art of fisticuffs when he’d saved enough (he’s reputedly worth a million) to buy his little drugstore on 44th Street in New York City, and he’ll be damned if he’ll let any skell muck around with it.

And if that’s not enough to give the little guy some hard-boiled cred, his adventures were chronicled by Day Keene, who always displayed a sure and steady hand with the rough stuff, during his very long and prolific career, not just in the pulps, but also in the theater, radio, paperbacks and television. And just to put a stamp on it, Doc even teams up with the more traditionally tough Tom Doyle, Day’s Chicago “private agency man,” in “If the Coffin Fits–“, which appeared in the March 1945 issue of Dime Mystery.