Created by Judson P. Philips
Other peuedonyms include Philip Owen, Hugh Pentecost
(1903 – 1989)
Feisty, headstrong socialite CAROLE TREVOR runs the Old Towne Detective Agency, given to her by her goofy but affable man-about-town ex-husband, wealthy New York socialite Maxwell Blythe. It was a parting gift after their divorce that he fully expected her to sell off—he gave it to her as a joke— and was surprised when she not only kept it, but turned it into a viable business.
So what else could he do but stick around, and lend a hand?
They make for an effective team. Carole is a shrewd detective, and Max isn’t quite the buffoon he appears to be, as sparks of a possible reconciliation occasionally fly. Complicating matters was the fact that Mark Hollett, an older man, also plans to stick around, in the hope that Carole will eventually marry him and settle down.
That triangle, though, is folded carefully into the hard-boiled action, with a dash of screwball for flavour, and a surprising—for the time—sympathy for feminist causes.
Carole and Max made their debut in the novel The Death Syndicate, published in January 1938, which has them squaring off against Nazis (and their American sympathizers), and they went on to appear in half a dozen short stories and serials in Detective Fiction Weekly, as well as another novel, Death Delivers a Postcard (1939).
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Judson Pentecost Philips was born in Northfield, Massachusetts, and bounced around before completing his education and graduating from Columbia University in 1925, and by the late twenties had already established himself in the pulps as an incredibly prolific writer, going on to write more than a hundred mystery and detective novels under such pseudonyms as Hugh Pentecost and Philip Owen, as well as under his own name. Among his many series detective characters were hotel manager Pierre Chambrun, whiz bang PR man Julian Quist, hard-boiled police inspector Luke Bradley, gambling joint operator Danny Coyle, Commie-fighting radio host Mark Chandler, amateur sleuth John Smith, thief and adventuress Ivy Trask and The Park Avenue Hunt Club, a gang of wealthy vigilantes who didn’t mind getting their hands bloody. The Mystery Writers of America named him a Grand Master in 1973.
UNDER OATH
- “The Death Syndicate is best in its first half, where Pentecost shows some cracker-jack storytelling… surprisingly good natured and upbeat. Its tone is much closer to pulp than Golden Age mystery novels”
— Mike Grost
SHORT STORIES & SERIALS
- “We Trade in Death (Part One)” (April 30, 1938, Detective Fiction Weekly)
- “We Trade in Death (Part Two)” (May 7, 1938, Detective Fiction Weekly)
- “We Trade in Death (Part Three)” (May 14, 1938, Detective Fiction Weekly)
- “We Trade in Death (Part Four)” (May 21, 1938, Detective Fiction Weekly)
- “We Trade in Death (Part Five)” (May 28, 1938, Detective Fiction Weekly)
- “We Trade in Death (Part Six)” (June 4, 1938, Detective Fiction Weekly)
- “Murder Most Foul (Part One” (January 7, 1939, Detective Fiction Weekly)
- “Murder Most Foul (Part Two” (January 14, 1939, Detective Fiction Weekly)
- “Murder Most Foul (Part Three” (January 21, 1939, Detective Fiction Weekly)
- “Murder Most Foul (Part Four” (January 28, 1939, Detective Fiction Weekly)
- “Murder Most Foul (Part Five” (February 4, 1939, Detective Fiction Weekly)
- “Murder Most Foul (Part Six” (February 11, 1939, Detective Fiction Weekly)
- “Night of Terror” (March 25, 1939, Detective Fiction Weekly)
- “Murder of the Ancients” ( April 22 1939, Detective Fiction Weekly)
- “The Murder Box” (May 6 1939, Detective Fiction Weekly)
- “Hounds of Despair (Part One)” (July 15, 1939, Detective Fiction Weekly)
- “Hounds of Despair (Part Two)” (July 22, 1939, Detective Fiction Weekly)
- “Hounds of Despair (Part Three)” (August 5, 1939, Detective Fiction Weekly)
- “Hounds of Despair (Part Four)” (August 12, 1939, Detective Fiction Weekly)
- “Hounds of Despair (Part Five)” (August 19, 1939, Detective Fiction Weekly)
- “Hounds of Despair (Part Six)” August 26, 1939, Detective Fiction Weekly)
NOVELS
- The Death Syndicate (1938) | Buy this book
- Death Delivers a Postcard (1939) | Buy this book
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
