Created by William Campbell Gault
(1910-97)
Before he came up with Brock Callahan, William Campbell Gault tinkered with several private eyes in various short stories, including SAUNDERS “SANDY” MCKANE, a member of an old Honolulu family, “now extinct,” turned into a hard-boiled Honolulu gumshoe with a warm spot in his heart for women and an even larger, warmer spot for mixed drinks (“I can drink anything”, he boasts).
Sandy was once part of the “in” crowd, playing golf, going to Miss Devanty’s School of the Dance, hobnobbing with all the “right” people. But that was before disaster and some scandal involving the police (never specified but intriguingly hinted at), left Sandy forced to work as a private peeper–albeit one with connections through all strata of Hawaiian society. And not only does he have connections, but for the most part he seems to get along with everyone.
In “Hibiscus and Homicide,” for example, he comes across as a likable kinda guy. And by the end of the story suggests Gault was already toying with the idea of a married detective.
Other private eyes Gault is also responsible include Mortimer Jones, Pierre Apoyan and of course Joe Puma, one of the great dark horses of detective fiction.
THE EVIDENCE
- “Who am I to judge? I am not Snow White.”
— Sandy philosophizes, in “Hibiscus and Homicide”
SHORT STORIES
- “Hibiscus and Homicide” (October 1947, Thrilling Detective; also in The Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction)
- “Wakiki Widow” (March 1948, Detective Story)
FURTHER INVESTIGATION
- Let’s Go to Hawaii
Hawaiian Eyes
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
