From The Great Detectives by Otto Penzler The following piece came from Otto Penzler's fascinating 1978 book The Great Detectives. Like the blurb on the cover of my battered paperback copy says, "The world's most celebrated sleuths unmasked by their creators," and sure enough there are interviews and conversations with twenty-six of them here, with … Continue reading Flash Casey by George Harmon Coxe
Tag: George Harmon Coxe
My Scrapbook: A Kent Murdock Murder Mystery TOLD IN PICTURES!
My ScrapbookA Kent Murdock Murder Mystery TOLD IN PICTURES! Is this cool, or what? Above is the actual cover of Four Frightened Women (1950, Dell), and right below is an ad for it. Occasionally touted as "the very first graphic novel" (it wasn't), it was number two in Dell's "Told in Pictures" line, Dell's ambitious … Continue reading My Scrapbook: A Kent Murdock Murder Mystery TOLD IN PICTURES!
George Harmon Coxe
(1901-1984) George Harmon Coxe was a journalist, prolific pulp writer, and novelist; an early star of hard boiled crime fiction, and one of Cap Shaw's beloved Black Mask Boys. In a long and prolific career, Coxe put his name to over sixty novels, the last being published in 1975, and hundreds of short stories. His … Continue reading George Harmon Coxe
Kent Murdock
Created by George Harmon Coxe (1901-84) KENT MURDOCK was a refined, cleaned-up version of author Coxe's rumpled, fast-talking crime photographer, Flashgun Casey, who appeared in the pages of Black Mask and several novels. In fact, Murdock was whipped up by Coxe explicitly to the much more lucrative book market less than a year after the … Continue reading Kent Murdock
Sam Crombie
Created by George Harmon Coxe (1901-84) New York City private eye SAM CROMBIE is a man of "considerable bulk", fiftyish and often sports a panama hat. He heads The Crombie Agency, situated "on the fourth floor of a non-descript office building on Seventh Avenue in the forties" which gives "no clue to the type … Continue reading Sam Crombie
Paul Baron
Created by George Harmon Coxe (1901-84) Yet another detective from prolific pulpster and one of the original Black Mask Boys that George Harmon Coxe PAUL BARON, a hard-boiled private eye, who appeared in four stories in Black Mask in 1936. He was ably assisted by his "scrappy side kick," Buck O'Shea. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Coxe … Continue reading Paul Baron
Jack Fenner
Created by George Harmon Coxe (1901-84) JACK FENNER is a rough-around-the-edges Boston private eye who originally popped up in several novels as the hands-on sidekick to the more genteel and refined Kent Murdock, a crime-solving crime photographer for The Boston Courier-Herald, way back in the thirties. Not that Fenner was exactly hard-boiled, especially in the … Continue reading Jack Fenner
Leon Morley
Created by George Harmon Coxe (1901-84) Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of eyes? LEON MORLEY is yet another private eye from the prolific Coxe, who started out in the pulps back in the 1930s and kept on writing novels into the seventies. But Leon wasn't one of the good guys. In his … Continue reading Leon Morley
All the World’s A Stage
Plays, Operas, Musicals & Other Theatrical Diversions Some of these are played straight. Some of them are played for fun. And few too many of them simply used the clothes of the P.I. genre to dress up something else entirely--and not always successfully. Okay, this is, obviously all pretty new to me. If you … Continue reading All the World’s A Stage
Max Hale
Created by George Harmon Coxe (1901-84) Charming, well-dressed, "about six feet tall and broader than the scales called for," well-off and single, Boston blueblood MAX CHAUNCEY HALE is only a private eye as a sort of hobby, although he has been to the State Police Academy. He's certainly not working very hard at it — … Continue reading Max Hale