Steve,
Re your message below:
> If you enjoy 1940s detective fiction, you may
be
> interested in reading
> about the books in Ziff-Davis's line of
Fingerprint
> Mysteries that came out
> between 1943 and 1948. Bill Pronzini, Victor
Berch
> and I have compiled a
> checklist of all of the books in the
series,
> complete with extended
> biographical notes on the authors, including
Bruno
> Fischer, Virginia Rath,
> Amelia Reynolds Long, Brett Halliday,
Phyllis
> Whitney, Hugh Pentecost and
> many others. Color images of the front covers
of
> all of the jackets are
> also provided.
Great article, Steve. One correction, however. Dolores
Hitchens's husband, Bert, wasn't a railroad superintendant.
He was a railroad DETECTIVE. Specifically, he was an
investigator for the Southern Pacific Railroad Police (which,
coincidentally, was the same department my grandfather, the
first member of my family to go into law enforcement, worked
for).
The five novels she collaborated on with her husband were
police procedurals about a squad of railroad cops in LA. Each
book put on a different cop or set of cops in the lead.
They'd recede into supporting roles in other books in the
series. Debuting a year before McBain's first 87th Precinct
book, they actually anticipate his concept of a "corporate
hero."
Indeed, they actually carry that concept to fuller fruition,
since, in the 87th Precinct series, Steve Carella very
quickly became "first among equals," while, in the Hitchens's
railroad police series, no one character ever rose to that
level of prominence.
JIM DOHERTY
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