Created by Hugh Pentecost
Pseudonym of Judson Phillips
Other pseudonyms include Philip Owen
(1903 – 1989)
The original was an action-loving big game hunter and all-round big guy, who stood a clean-shaven, brawny 6’5” and 240 pounds, and sported an unruly mop of curly red hair. He provided much of the muscle for the Park Avenue Hunt Club, a group of New York City vigilantes and detectives whose adventures appeared back in the thirties and forties in the pulps by Judson Phillips, Pentecost’s real name.
This version of Jericho appeared in several short stories and beginning in the 1960s. In this incarnation, he’s a burly, red-bearded Greenwich Village painter with a passion for justice, a sort of combination artist and avenger; likened to a Viking warrior by his sidekick Arthur “Hally” Hallam (also from the Hunt Club), who chronicled Jericho’s new adventures. The two met while serving in the Korean War and have remained friends ever since. Hally was shorter and plumper than Jericho and made his living writing Kafkaesque novels.
Jericho was successful as an artist with pieces in many museums and private collections, even though his angry style characterized by vivid colors made his work controversial. He’s usually drawn into investigations more by his desire to see justice triumph rather than for pay, so he’s not really a private eye although his actions will certainly seem familiar to fans of the shamus game. His efforts on behalf of downtrodden individuals and others in need led him not just through the New York art world, but further afield into the realm of network television and sixties revolutionaries.
The Jericho series proved to be less successful than his works about Julian Quist and hotel-manager sleuth Pierre Chambrun. Still, the author must have had a special fondness for the character who he’d created almost thirty years earlier.
The novels did okay (despite some cringey covers on the paperback editions, but the prolific Phillips stopped after only six of them. He kept the series going, however, via short stories in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine until his death.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Judson Pentecost Philips was born in Northfield, Massachusetts, and bounced around the world before completing his education and graduating from Columbia University in 1925. By the late twenties he had already established himself in the pulps as an incredibly prolific writer, with the Park Avenue Hunt Club series, going on to pen over 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 private eyes Carole Trevor and Jason Dark. The Mystery Writers of America named him a Grand Master in 1973.
NOVELS
- Sniper (1965) | Buy this book
- Hide Her From Every Eye (1966) | Buy this book
- The Creeping Hours (1966) | Buy this book
- Dead Woman of the Year (1967) | Buy this book
- The Girl With Six Fingers (1969) | Buy this book
- A Plague of Violence (1970) | Buy this book
SHORT STORIES
- “Jericho and the Skiing Clue” (November, 1964, EQMM)
- “Jericho and the Painting Clue” (July, 1965, EQMM)
- “Jericho and the Dying Clue” (October, 1965, EQMM)
- “Jericho and the Silent Witness” (November, 1965, EQMM)
- “Jericho and the Nuisance Club” (August, 1966, EQMM)
- “Jericho and the Two Ways to Die” (September, 1972, EQMM)
- “Jericho and the Deadly Errand” (January, 1973, EQMM)
- “Jericho and the Unknown Lover” (February, 1975, EQMM)
- “Jericho and the Studio Murders” (November, 1975, EQMM)
- “Jericho On Campus (October, 1976, EQMM)
- “The Birthday Killer” (July 1978, EQMM)
- “Jericho and the Million-To-One” (February 1979, EQMM)
- “The Man Who Stirred Champagne” (September 1979, EQMM)
- “Jericho and the Assassin” (December 17, 1979, EQMM)
- “Jericho and the Cardboard Box (April 7, 1980, EQMM)
- “Jericho and the Memorial Night” (August, 1980, EQMM)
- “Act of Violence” (Mid-July, 1982, EQMM)
- “Jericho’s Way” (February, 1987, EQMM)
Respectfully submitted by Sidney Williams, with additional information supplied by Kevin Burton Smith.
