Created by W.T. Ballard (Willis Todhunter Ballard)
Pseudonyms include P. D. Ballard, Harrison Hunt, Neil MacNeil, John Shepherd
(1903-80)
The blurb for “Murder’s Mandate,” from the table of contents for the September 1945 issue of Thrilling Detective (no relation) pretty much says it all:
“Private Sleuth Sam Boyd plays for high stakes in a Western gambling town when he puts his chips on a scheme to prove his own innocence of crime—and solve a grim death riddle!”
I think this was deceptively slow-moving, sleepy-eyed SAM BOYD‘s only appearance, but of course anything by W.T. Ballard is worth checking out.
“Murder’s Mandate” was later collected in a 2020 ebook, Murder Calls the Tune, along with three other of Ballard’s hard-boiled novelettes about life on the home front during World War II.
He had a long career, first popping up regularly in the pages of Black Mask (under the editorialship of Cap Shaw), and went on to a long and successfull career writing for the pulps and later, the burgeoning paperback market, cranking out crime fiction, Westerns and tie-ins well into the seventies.
SHORT STORIES
- “Murder’s Mandate” (September 1945, Thrilling Detective)
COLLECTIONS
- Murder Calls the Tune (2020)Â |Â Kindle it!
Includes “Murder’s Mandate,” featuring Sam Boyd, plus “Murder Calls The Tune” (1943), “Death Before Defense” (1944) and “The Countess and the Killer” (1943).