Carrie Cashin

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Created by Theodore A. Tinsley
Other pseudonyms include Reid Sleyton, Maxwell Grant
(1894-79)

Attractive as sin, hard-boiled as hell. One of the very first of the hardboiled lady dicks of the pulps, and certainly the most popular was Manhattan eye CARRIE CASHIN, who appeared in over three dozen action-packed, fast-paced stories, starting in the November 1937 issue of Crime Busters, and continuing in that magazine (through a name change to Mystery Magazine in 1939) right up to her final appearance in November 1942.

In all, there were fifty issues of Crime Busters/Mystery Magazine, and Carrie appeared in all but twelve of them.

A former department store detective, Carrie now runs the Cash and Carry Detective Agency, whose standard fee is a whopping $1000. Mind you, she gets the job done, never letting little things like the law (or being a woman) get in the way. Breaking and entering, lying to the police, even a little armed robbery or kidnapping, if that’s what it took. Posing as her boss, and fronting the agency was Carrie’s partner: hunky, muscular Aleck Burton, a tough, but easy-going guy (fans of Remington Steele take note!).

Still, it was Carrie’s show all the way. She was the real brains behind it all, and the reader was never allowed to forget it. Nor were they likely to forget that she was a woman–frequent mentions are made of her “softly rounded beauty”, and more than one illustration featured an enticing glimpse of a shapely leg and a thigh holster.

No apologies here–the Cashin tales are solid pulp fare, breathlessly-plotted, as Carrie and Aleck rush here and rush there, shooting, fighting, stumbling over bodies at a furious pace, and not shy about adding more than a few to the pile themselves. Carrie proved to be a true fan favorite; arguably the most popular female hero in all the pulps, consistently placing first in reader polls, and her stories were almost always prominently featured on the covers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A prolific pulpster, Theodore A. Tinsley wrote for most of the big ones. His best-known creation was Carrie, but he also wrote Jerry Tracy, hard-boiled Broadway gossip columnist and Amusement, Inc., a gang of crimebusting vigilantes lead by Major John Tattersall Lacy (aka “The Scarlet Ace”). He also penned over two dozen stories featuring The Shadow (the first ones not to be written by Walter B. Gibson).

SHORT STORIES

  • “White Elephant” (November 1937, Crime Busters)
  • “Stubborn Lady” (December 1937, Crime Busters)
  • “Fast Woman” (February 1938, Crime Busters)
  • “Death’s Green Necklace” (March 1938, Crime Busters)
  • “Snow Trap” (April 1938, Crime Busters)
  • “Blue Murder” (May 1938, Crime Busters)
  • “Miniature Murder” (June 1938, Crime Busters)
  • “Black Queen” (July 1938, Crime Busters)
  • “Slingshot Magic” (August 1938, Crime Busters)
  • “No Time to Fool” (September 1938, Crime Busters)
  • “Death in the Dark” (October 1938, Crime Busters)
  • “High Jack” (November 1938, Crime Busters)
  • “Riddle in Silk” (December 1938, Crime Busters)
  • “House of Horror” (January 1939, Crime Busters)
  • “The Crazy Crimes” (March 1939, Crime Busters)
  • “Terror Island” (April 1939, Crime Busters)
  • “Tin Soldier” (May 1939, Crime Busters)
  • “A Bullet for a King” (June 1939, Crime Busters)
  • “The Man with Green Whiskers” (July 1939, Crime Busters)
  • “The Three-Toed Horse” (August 1939, Crime Busters)
  • “The Three X’s” (September 1939, Crime Busters)
  • “The Yellow Man” (October 1939, Crime Busters)
  • “Tar Baby” (November 1939, Street & Smith’s Mystery Magazine)
  • “Bald-Headed Snatch” (December 1939, Street & Smith’s Mystery Magazine)
  • “Miami Murder” (January 1940, Street & Smith’s Mystery Magazine)
  • “Double Trouble” (February 1940, Street & Smith’s Mystery Magazine)
  • “Terror Below” (March 1940, Street & Smith’s Mystery Magazine)
  • “The Mole” (April 1940, Street & Smith’s Mystery Magazine)
  • “Death Lights a Candle” (May 1940, Street & Smith’s Mystery Magazine)
  • “Society Kill” (July 1940, Street & Smith’s Mystery Magazine)
  • “Ask for Sweeney” (September 1940, Street & Smith’s Mystery Magazine)
  • “Red Face” (January 1941, Street & Smith’s Mystery Magazine)
  • “Nice People” (March 1941, Street & Smith’s Mystery Magazine)
  • “The Blue Giraffe” (July 1941, Street & Smith’s Mystery Magazine)
  • “The Macaw Mystery” (September 1941, Street & Smith’s Mystery Magazine)
  • “Monkey Business” (January 1942, Street & Smith’s Mystery Magazine)
  • “The Man from Florida” (July 1942, Street & Smith’s Mystery Magazine)
  • “The Unusual Mr. Smith” (November 1942, Street & Smith’s Mystery Magazine)

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

  • Dangerous Dames
    A timeline of some of the significant female eyes, and the date of their first appearance.
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. The Crime Busters issue is from July 1939, and features a scene from the Cashin story “The Man with Green Whiskers.”

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5 thoughts on “Carrie Cashin”

  1. Great write up, but with one correction:

    The November 1940 short “You Can’t Cheat Death” – while written by Tinsley – is *not* a Cashin Cashin stories.

    Reply

    1. I’m not saying you’re wrong, hellpop, but the Fiction Mags Index lists it as a Carrie Cashin story, which is where I probably got it. Of course they could be wrong. They’re usually good, but poop happens, as I’m well aware.

      Have you read the story, or seen it reprinted somewhere?

      Reply

      1. I have that issue of S&S Mystery Magazine, so I can verify that it is not a Carrie Cashin story. I hope I didn’t sound harsh in my original post – I just don’t want people to experience the same disappointment I did when I was able to purchase a copy in my pursuit of a complete Carrie Cashin collection.

  2. The story, “You Can’t Cheat Death” that you have listed as being in the November 1940 of Street & Smith’s Mystery Magazine, is not reprinted anywhere that I know of, but I do have the original S&S Mystery Magazine, Nov 1940.

    Reply

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