Created by Peter Cagney
Pseudonym of Bevis Winter
Other pseudonyms include Al Bocca, Peter Cagney, Sammy Coburn, Bennet Hill & Gordon Shayne; and the house pseudonym Hyman Zore
(1918-1985)
Private eye JOHNNY LUCAS appeared only once, as far as I can tell, in a “full-length novel,” published in the June 1960 issue of Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. Although clocking in at less than eighty pages (pages 42–120), I might call it a “novella.”
Still, it did make the cover.
I haven’t been able to track the story down, but I’m willing to bet that Lucas was simply another of British author Cagney’s generic “faux Yankee” hard-boiled dicks for which he was famous for — Anthony Boucher once tagged him as a “pseudo-American” and the charges stick.
All his books are, according to Boucher, “moderately competent, but the speech and local color (spelled of course, “colour”) never ring quite right, and the violent stories are derivative and humorless.”
Your mileage may vary…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bevis Winter (Peter Cagney’s real name) was a relatively prolific British writer (some say “hack”) writing under a slew of pseudonyms in the fifties and sixties, including Peter Cagney, a somewhat clumsy and obvious mash-up of Peter Cheyney and James Cagney. A veteran of the “Mushroom Jungle” era, he even had a hand in publishing and editing Stag, one of the first British Mens’ Magazines. He also published a non-fiction booklet, The Naked Truth About Freelance Writing in 1948. Although he never really made it in the U.S. where most of his books were set, his “gangster novels” and faux American hard-boiled detective fiction was warmly received in France, Germany and Italy, and across much of the Commonwealth. Other private eyes include Steve Craig (by far his most popular creation), Major Martin Myers, Al Rankin, and Sebastian Riffkin. I dare you to try and tell ’em apart.
NOVELLAS
- “Murderers Make Mistakes” (June 1960, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine)
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Thanks to Vit58 for the tip.
