King Bennett

Created by Dean Davis

“Every man has his vice. For some it’s alcohol while for others it’s gambling. Mine happens to be dames. They cost me enough. Why would I need another addiction draining my wallet?”
— from “Click”, Said the Camera

There’s plenty to love about this legendary long-running series by Dean Davis, “the world’s coolest mystery writer,” featuring Las Vegas private eye KING BENNETT. In over fifty books, from “Bang”, Said the Gun (1956), to the very last, Somewhere the Sun is Shining (1969), Davis consistently delivered the gumshoe goods, capturing the finger-snapping beat of Rat Pack-era Vegas with style to spare.

The first few books featured King working as a P.I. in LA, but the series really picked up when he moved to Las Vegas at the end of Dead Man’s Party (1957). Along the way, King managed to visit Reno a few times, Philadelphia and even a pre-legalized gambling Atlantic City but for most the series, Las Vegas became his home turf. And that suited him fine.

King’s a suitably wise-assd and hard-boiled dick, with a taste for babes and a nose for trouble, part lounge lizard, and part man about town. Imagine Richard Prather’s Shell Scott hanging out with Frankie, and you’ve about got it. By today’s standards, he’d almost certainly be viewed as a politically incorrect, sexist pig, but this was Rat Pack-era Las Vegas, and he was, well, the King. In fact, the tongue-in-cheek raunchiness is pretty tame by today’s standards.

And, of course, every King must have his court. Once Bennett was in Vegas, the rest of the supporting cast soon fell into place: Jack O’Hara, a failed stand-up comedian from New York City whose luck changed when he changed his stage name to Stanky Field and geared his act towards stories about growing up Jewish in New York, Joy, King’s twenty-something blonde secretary, and police contact Captain Ted Fleming. King’s favourite hangouts in Vegas were Jingo’s Coffee Shop and Chook’s, the quintessential smoky jazz club where all the hepcats met.

Davis’ modest claims of being “just some guy who wrote mysteries” are belied by the sheer whallop of these books. And Davis himself was a character in his own right. Not only did he write the books, half the time it seemed he’d just stepped out of its pages. He was quite a prolific writer, and enjoyed a challenge. Responding to a dare from a rival writer, he even wrote four romance novels, under the pen name of Elizabeth Sheridan Ritz, and he wrote several westerns under the Jericho Long byline. All his books were PBO’s, and all were published by the legendary Green Shield press.

But Davis’ crowning achievement was classic “The Crime Scene Trilogy,“ three linked books in the Bennett series (And Those Who Die, And Those Who Kill and And Those Who Know–all 1959). The premise took the old saw about “three sides to every story”and applied it to the murder mystery, looking at one case from three different angles – that of the victim, the killer, and the detective. He won the prestigious American Sleuth and Mystery Award for the trilogy. Six years later, he won again, for The Dark Makes No Noise (1965), but the trilogy is still what he’s best remembered for.

About the only thing, in fact, that’s not easy to love about this series is that it doesn’t exist.

That’s right.

It doesn’t fucking exist.

While Dean Davis is (allegedly) real, he’s not some grizzled, hard-living, alcoholic wordsmith from the fifties, maybe living out his life in a shit fly motel, dreaming of his glory days, but a fellow web monkey with a heart of gold, a taste for P.I.s, the Rat Pack, old paperbacks and girlie mags, and tongue jammed so far into his cheek it’s almost poking out his ear.

In real life, he’s (possibly) a multimedia specialist for Delaware Technical and Community College. He began free-lance writing for Marvel Comics in 1996 and now writes for “Secret Agent Corrigan,” produced by King Features in Europe. His Golden Web Award-winning site, Dean Davis: Just Some Guy Who Wrote Mysteries, just has to be seen to be believed. That, at least exists–I saw it once upon a time. Everything you wanted to know about King Bennett and “that other” Dean Davis, but were afraid to ask…

Like Ron Miller’s’ site for Velda Bellinghausen, a 50’s-era chorus-girl-turned-P.I., this is a finely-rendered labour of love, a fitting tribute to the P.I. genre of the past. Maybe Velda and King should date.

In fact, it sorta makes you wish Davis would actually cough up the real deal, instead of just teasing us so well.

THE EVIDENCE

“How could you honestly think Jankowski would act like a rational human being? Didn’t you see the bolts in his neck?!”
— from Luck
.
“They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. I tried to stare into Molly’s blue pearls to see if she was lying, but her breasts kept getting in the way. So I stared at them. Not only did her beauties fail to give me any answers, they made me forget my questions. This is the last time I interrogate a naked girl — maybe.”
— from Broken

UNDER OATH

“You’re going to have to take a cold shower after Chapter 12!”
— The Denver Star-Journal on The Dirty Rhythm

NOVELS

“Bang,” Said the Gun (1956)
“Tick Tock,” Said the Clock (1956)
“Click,” Said the Camera (1957)
Dead Man’s Party (1957)
Neon Nights (1957)
Luck (1957)
Who Let Temptation In? (1957)
Touch and Go (1957)
Hit the Ground Dying (1958)
Angel Tears (1958)
Screen Kiss (1959)
And Those Who Die (1959; first part of “The Crime Scene Trilogy”)
And Those Who Kill 1959; second part of “The Crime Scene Trilogy”)
And Those Who Know (1959; third part of “The Crime Scene Trilogy”)
I’m Here, Miss DuShane (1960)
The Siren’s Wail (1960)
The Last Time Forever (1960)
One Kiss (1960)
Live it Up! (1961)
A Left on Fremont (1961)
Everything You Want (1961)
The Dirty Rhythm (1961)
Diggin’ Your Scene (1962)
Caught in the Game (1962)
She’s Got a Gun! (1962)
Broken (1962)
The Electric Placebo (1963)
When the Dice Go Down (1963)
The Alibi Wore a Bikini (1963)
The Call Girl Wore Nothing (1964)
The Killer Wore Fishnets (1964)
The Witness Wore a Toe Tag (1964)
Sweet Revenge (1964)
The Dark Makes No Noise (1965)
Black and White and Red All Over (1965)
The Working Hour (1965)
The Fatal Flaw (1966)
The Big Mess (1966)
So Much for Your Promises (1966)
One Step Ahead (1966)
More Than This (1967)
A Faceful of Fist (1967)
Bedspring Kiss (1967)
Wishing I was Lucky (1967)
The Missing Peace (1968)
Chips are Falling! (1968)
The Trust of a Paranoid Man (1968)
Where the Long Shadows Fall (1968)
One Hand on the Wheel (1969)
Somewhere the Sun is Shining (1969)

COLLECTIONS

Girl in Trouble (1963)

SHORT STORIES

“Girl in Trouble” (1963, Girl in Trouble)
“The Sour-Faced Girl” (1963, Girl in Trouble)
“The Freckle-Faced Girl” (1963, Girl in Trouble)
“And Those Who Mourn” (January 1960, Girlie-Q)
Not a King Bennett story, per se, but a wrap up to the Crime Scene Trilogy.

FURTHER INVESTIGATIONS

Dean Davis: Just Some Guy Who Wrote Mysteries (The WayBack Machine)
In its original incarnation, this was just the bomb–a truly snazzy site about the coolest mystery private eye writer in the world, crammed full of book and magazines covers, plot breakdowns and even the wild and wooly tales behind the tales. Unfortunately, that original version seems to have vanished, just like Puff, quietly slipping into his cave… fortunately, the Way Back Machine folks managed to salvage some of it.
My Scrapbook: King Bennett Forever!
More salvage. My tribute to Dean Davis’ legendary detective.
Viva Las Vegas!
Feeling lucky? A list of Las Vegas eyes.