Created by Marshall Thornton Young, bookish LEWIS WAIT finds himself a reluctant operative for the legendary Pinkerton National Detective Agency. He didn't really want the job — he considers the agency merely "a band of thugs and strikebreakers" — but when financial hardship hit the family after the death of his father and brother, he … Continue reading Lewis Wait
Tag: Agency Op
Colm Steiner
Created by Nicholas Wagner "When night fell, they burned a campfire and ate a kangaroo." A hard-drinking, hard-loving, hard-edged hard man for hire, COLM STEINER works for the London-based Enquiry Service in the years following World War I, doing whatever needs to be done: find a missing person, qualm a gang war, track down a … Continue reading Colm Steiner
Harriet Morrow
Created by Rob Osler Is it just me? Or does there seem to be a surprising number of books and other media in the first few decades of the 21st century inspired by Kate Warne, the Pinkerton Detective Agency's first female operative? Some are endless retellings of the same facts, others offer fictionalized and romanticized … Continue reading Harriet Morrow
Scott Elliott
Created by Terence Faherty (1954 --) Another of the growing breed of retro eyes (see Toby Peters, Jack Levine, Brian Kane, Nate Heller, etc.), the adventures of Tinseltown gumshoes SCOTT ELLIOTT take him from Hollywood's so-called "Golden Age" of the 1940s right up to the late sixties. A former bit-player (a nice word for failed actor) … Continue reading Scott Elliott
Trixie Meehan & Mike Harris
Created by T.T. Flynn Pseudonym of Thomas Theodore Flynn (1902-78) "Pert and sweet, soft and cuddly, harmless as a kitten and luscious-looking to all big strong men—that's Trixie if you don't know her." Nuts about each other, or just nuts? One of those hard-boiled dames from the pulps, cute, gun-toting TRIXIE MEEHAN was, along with her … Continue reading Trixie Meehan & Mike Harris
Bill Rye
Created by John Spain Pseudonym of Cleve F. Adams (1895-1949) John Spain's BILL RYE is a cynical op whose description will probably remind you of Hammett's description of Sam Spade (or at least that's who I was reminded of). Rye works for a Los Angeles detective agency run by a gent named Callahan, who raised … Continue reading Bill Rye
Al Delaney
Created by Thomas B. Black (1910-93) Battered and scarred AL DELANEY is an op for the Redman Detective Agency in Chancellor City (don't waste yot time looking it up--it's ficticious). When the boss, ol' Giles Redman himself, bites the big one and gets murdered in the first book, The Whitebird Murders (1946), Al (with the … Continue reading Al Delaney
Luke MacLane
Created by William ArdPseudonyms include Jonas Ward, Ben Kerr, Thomas Wills and Mike Moran(1922-1960) I was in the mood to read a vintage hardboiled paperback, and this is what came to hand. I'd never read any of William Ard's mysteries before, but years ago I read all the Westerns he wrote under the name Jonas Ward. … Continue reading Luke MacLane