A Preliminary List
There’s no doubting that Roger Torrey (1901-46) was one prolific pulpster, pounding out (in between drinks) almost 300 stories for the crime and detective magazine of the thirties and forties (at least fifty in Black Mask alone!). And while he may not have enjoyed the acclaim of Hammett, Chandler or many of the other Black Mask Boys, his stuff was almost always solid and entertaining, capable of genuine thrills, robust characters, some snappy patter, spot-on characterization and clever plotting. His stories were full of “dynamic punch,” as Black Mask editor Cap Shaw once put it.
And a good chunk of those stories featured private eyes. Some appeared in several stories, but most of his private eye tales were one-offs, with their heroes rising to the occasion, only to never to be seen again.
As our pal James M. Reasoner points out, “Despite the fact that they all have different names, those narrators are basically the same person: a private detective, often an ex-cop and a lone operative, smart but not infallible, tough but no superman, basically a decent sort but not above a little chicanery and lechery. He’ll get beaten up when the odds are against him, he’ll be fooled by an attractive woman from time to time, and he’ll muddle his way through cases with dogged determination as much as anything else. But in the end, he comes up with the killer every time, of course.”
Of course.
- John Boyle (1 story)
- Johnny Cass (aka “Johnny Carr”) (5 stories)
- Shean Connell (1 novel, 8 stories)
- Jim Dougherty (1 story)
- Marty Dolan (1 story
- Sam Drake (6 stories)
- James Halloran (1 story)
- Pete Halloran (1 story)
- Mike “Mickey” Hanigan & Irving Kowalski (11 stories)
- Joe Harper (1 story)
- John Keogh (1 story)
- Matt Keogh (1 story)
- George Killeen (5 stories)
- Pat McCarthy & Marge Chalmers (14 stories)
- Terrance McGowan (1 story)
- Teddy Rawlin (1 story)
- John Ryan (13 stories)
This is by no way a complete list, but it’s a start. Let’s see how many of these one-shot eyes we can dig up…
Preliminary list respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
