Don Cadee

Created by Spencer Dean
Pseudonym of Prentice Winchell
Other pseudonyms include Jay de Bekker, Giles Norcroft, Stewart Sterling, Robert Wallace
(1895-1976)

Okay, he’s not really a private eye, but DON CADEE doesn’t seem to know that.

He’s chief of security for Amblett’s, a swankier-than-swank Fifth Avenue department store in New York City. He’s tall, lean, tough and dedicated, prowling the store after hours, putting in unpaid overtime, going above and beyond the call of duty, to protect the store, its reputation, and usually his fiancée, who also works in security, and can usually be counted on for getting into at least one jam of sorts per book.

Quite a good series, although one does get tired of Don always racing against time to rescue his girlfriend, who seems to be kidnapped with alarming frequency.

And Don isn’t just some slick troubleshooter in a suit, talkin’ loud and sayin’ nothin’. He gets right down to it in a series of cases to protect the reputation of “one of New York’s finest retail establishments.”

In an interesting sidebar, it turns out the author also wrote several stories for the pulps in the fifties featuring Don Marko, an apparent predecessor of Cadee, who worked as Chief of Store Protection at Nimblett’s, another swank Ffifth Avenue department store.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Spencer Dean (whose real name was Prentice Winchell) wrote under a slew of pseudonyms, but whatever name he used, he really was the “King of the Specialty Detectives.” Although they sure acted like private eyes, their official occupations ranged from upscale house dick Gil Vine and department store Don Cadee to Fire Marshall Ben Pedley and Harbour Detective Lieutenant Steve Koski. Before turning to novels,  he was responsible for numerous stories in the pulps, featuring such diverse characters as Native-American private eye Jim Big-Knife,  undercover cop Johnny Hi Gear, Don Marko (an early version of Don Cadee), Royal Canadian Mountie Eric Lewis, racetrack sleuth Vince Mallie, and NYPD hard-asses The Special Squad. He also worked as a journalist, a screenwriter and a writer of radio scripts.

NOVELS

• The Smell of Fear (1954; aka “The Scent of Fear”) | Buy this book
  Originally published in Jonathan Press Mystery 88.
• The Frightened Fingers (1954) | Buy this book
• Marked Down for Murder (1956) | Buy this book
• Murder on Delivery (1957) | Buy this book
• Dishonor Among Thieves (1958) | Buy this book
• The Merchant of Murder (1959) | Buy this book  | Kindle it!
• Price Tag For Murder (1959) | Buy this book
• Murder After a Fashion (1960) | Buy this book
• Credit for a Murder (1961) | Buy this book

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

• An Eye by Any Other Name Would Still Smell As Sweet
  Official & Not-So-Official Occupations of Some Popular Eyes.
• Stewart Sterling:  King Of The Specialty Detectives
  Richard Moore clues us in. Curiously, he doesn’t mention Don Cadee. (December 2003, Mystery*File 40)

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.