A Short List of “New” Series
When I first began working my way into the Shamus Game sometime in the late seventies/early eighties (Okay, boomer?), I read everything I could get my hands on. I prowled newsstands, spinner racks, libraries, garage sales and used bookstores, living on old and new paperback novels (“the kind the drugstores sell”), and lots of stories published in the mystery collections, and issues of AHMM, EQMM, MSMM… whatever.
Sure, I could go on (and on and on) about all the great PIs of the past, but that’s not what this list is about. And no, not all these eyes or their authors are big names (some of them, sadly, are already gone), some of them also appear in novels and some of them don’t, but these are the private eye short story series that I fell in love with over the years and helped spark my addiction; these are a few of my favourite things — the ones that first appeared in my lifetime.
- Nameless by Bill Pronzini
First appearance: “It’s a Lousy World” (1968 August, AHMM) - Sam Train by Ernest Savage
First short story appearance: “The Small Hours” (November 1976, AHMM) - Matt Scudder by Lawrence Block
First appearance: “Out the Window” (September 1977, AHMM) - Amos Walker by Loren D. Estleman
First short story appearance: “Robber’s Roost” (April 1982, Mystery Magazine) - Kinsey Millhone by Sue Grafton
First short story appearance: “She Didn’t Come Home” (1985, Redbook; aka “Long Gone”) - Ben Perkinsby Rob Kantner
First appearance: “‘C’ Is For Cookie” (September 1982, AHMM) - Joe Standard by Dan A. Sproul
First appearance: “The Sure Thing” (January 1989, AHMM) - R.B. “Ax” Acton by Doug Allyn
First appearance: “Mojo Man” (October 1990, AHMM) - Dan Fortune by Michael Collins
First short story appearance: “No One Likes to be Played for a Sucker” (July 1969, EQMM) - “Moe Ron” Boyette by Michael Bracken
First appearance: “Feel the Pain” (2003, Flesh & Blood: Guilty As Sin) - Martin Wade by Libby Cudmore
First appearance: “All Shook Down” (September/October 2020, EQMM) - Tim Chadwick by Joseph S. Walker
First appearance: “What They Say I Used to Be” (2020, Hoosier Noir Two)
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
