Leander & Horatio Jones (The Jones Brothers)

Created by Maxwell Hawkins
(1895-1962)

LEANDER JONES and HORATIO JONES were twins (identical as the two “proverbial peas”), the sole operatives of Manhattan’s Jones and Jones Detective Agency (with offices in the Flatiron Building, no less), who didn’t just stumble into cases that involved murder–it was their speciality. Not that they needed the work–“their private inherited fortunes,” we’re told, “were more than ample for their needs.”

Nor did they look like they hunted down and captures killers. Both were “meek and mild looking men,” both bald, blue-eyed, short, both slender, nondescript and self-effacing. Leander, the senior partner in the agency, was tended to speak formally, and was prone to such exclamations as “My word, Horatio!,” while his younger (by ten minutes) brother gladly passed his time in their offices, scouring the back pages of newspapers for interesting cases. They tended to play up their similarities while working a case, wearing similar, often wrinkled, clothing.

Written by Maxwell Hawkins, the Jones Brothers series was a transitional one for Dime Detectivemagazine’s editorial focus, from weird menace & mysteries to the more traditional gumshoe detective story pioneered by rival magazine, Black Mask.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mostly forgotten now, Maxwell A. Hawkins was a  copy editor for the New York Daily News who also wrote for the pulps, mostly mysteries (including a few weird menace tales) and sports stories. He died in Westport, Connecticut in 1962.

SHORT STORIES

• “Alias the Corpse” (August 15, 1933, Dime Detective)
• “The Devil’s Dozen” (December 15, 1933, Dime Detective)
• “Death from Down Under” (April 15, 1934, Dime Detective)
• “Duchess of Death” (May 1, 1934, Dime Detective)
• “Fool’s Jewels” (July 15, 1934, Dime Detective)
• “Fair and Murder” (August 1, 1934, Dime Detective)

COLLECTIONS

• The Complete Cases of the Jones Brothers (2021) | Buy this book
  Contains all six stories in the series.

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

• Four Eyes
  Twin Private Detectives

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.