Etienne,
Re your comment below:
> He was one of the successful writers of "Black
Mask"
> (starting there end 1927) but his success
came
> mostly
> from a series with Jerry Frost sort of ace pilot
of
> a
> squadron named "Hell's Stepson's".
Lest people get the idea that the Jerry Frost stories were
military fiction, "Hell's Stepsons" was the nickname of a
squadron that was officially designated the "Texas Air
Rangers. Captain Frost was a Texas Ranger assigned to command
the air arm of the Lone Star State's famed law enforcement
body. The fact that, at the time, the Rangers HAD no air arm
did not deter McCoy in the least.
The Frost series notwithstanding, many regard a non-series
story entitled "The Mopper-Up" to be McCoy's best BLACK MASK
submission. Based loosely on the Prohibition-era town-taming
activities of real-life Rangers like Frank Hamer and others,
it is the story of a Ranger who arrives in an oil-boom town
that has been overrun by gangsters and racketeers and
proceeds to clean the place up. Sort of RED HARVEST in
miniature. It's been reprinted in Bill Pronzini's THE ARBOR
HOUSE TREASURY OF MYSTERY AND DETECTIVE STORIES FROM THE
GREAT PULPS.
JIM DOHERTY
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