private eye – SMB Noir

April 1927 issue ~ cover art by Fred Craft

May 1927 issue

cover art by Fred Craft

~ J. Edgar Ambler, “The Buzzard”, ‘The Buzzard & the Cracker, criminals’, author’s sole appearance in BM

~ Tom Curry, “The Stick-Up Club”, 8^th of 23 with Macnamara (Mac), NYPD 1^st grade dick, 13^th of 39 stories in BM

~ Erle Stanley Gardner, “In Full Account”, 16th of 73 Ed Jenkins stories, last of 3 with ‘The Girl with the Mole’, reprinted in Dead Men’s Letters (1990, Carroll & Graf anthology of Jenkins stories), 25th of 99 stories in BM

~ Dashiell Hammett, “$106,000 Blood Money” Continental Op [21st of 25], sequel to “The Big Knock-Over”, in the 2/1927 issue, reprinted with its prequel as Blood Money (Tower, 1943), reprinted in The Big Book of the Continental Op (Vintage, 2017), 30^th of 51 stories in BM

~ (Charles John) Cutcliffe Hyne, “The Liner and the Iceberg”, 7th of 8 yarns with Captain Kettle

~ Don Livingston, “No Grandstand Play”, Western, 2nd of 2 stories in BM

~ Riblew Reelhew, “Eyes of the Night”, ‘Dandy Dan, nimble & nimble-witted crook’, 2nd of 2 stories under this pseudonym, Wilber Wheeler reversed

~ Victor Shaw, “For a Girl Like That”, ‘Western detective’, 1st of 5 stories in BM

~ Raoul [Fauconnier] Whitfield, “South of Savannah”, 4th of 7 ‘Chuck Reddington story; airplanes & machineguns’, 12th of 68 stories in BM [see also 24 stories as Ramon Decolta]

©Seattle Mystery Bookshop

November 1935 issue ~ cover art by Walter Baumhofer

November 1935 issue

cover art by Walter Baumhofer

better image than previously posted

Carroll John Daly, “Dead Hands Reaching” (Race Williams)

John K. Butler, “The Stairway to Hell” (Rex Lonergan)

Oscar Schisgall, “Island of Fear”

Norbert Davis, “The Devil’s Scalpel” (Bill Ray)

Wyatt Blassingame, “3+1 = Murder”

March 1947 issue ~ cover art by Albert Drake

March 1947 issue

cover art by Albert Drake

better image than previously posted

~ Dale Clark, “The Corpse with the Bloody Nose”, last of 28 O’Hanna stories, last of 32 appearances in BM

~ Merle Constiner, “Dead on Arrival”, ‘Luther McGavock, private detective; he works Atherton Browne who heads a Memphis-based agency, 10^th of 11 of the McG stories; usually rural setting’, reprinted in Let the Dead Alone: The Complete Black Mask Cases of Luther McGavock (Steeger, 2020), 11^th of 12 stories in BM

~ Robert C. Dennis, “Out of This World”, 2nd of 6 with ‘William (Willie) Carmody, Confidential Investigations & Margaret O’Leary, writer, Hollywood, WC is first-person narrator’, 2nd of 10 stories in BM

~ William Campbell Gault, “A Murder for Mac”, reprinted in Hot-House Homicide: The Complete Black Mask Cases of Mortimer Jones (Steeger, 2925), 2nd of 5 with PI Mortimer Jones, 3^rd of 9 stories in BM

~ Coleman Meyer, “You’ll Never Grow Old”, ‘Hill Cartright, auto racer, tells it’, author’s 1^st of 2 stories in BM

©Seattle Mystery Bookshop

March 1930 issue ~ cover art by J.W. Schlaikjer

March 1930 issue

better image than previously posted

cover art by J. W. Schlaikjer

~ Ramon Decolta (Raoul Whitfield), “Death in the Pasig”, Jo Gar, 2^nd of 24 in BM, reprinted in The Hard-Boiled Omnibus (1946), reprinted in West of Guam: The Complete Cases of Jo Bar (Altus Press, 2013)

~ Dashiell Hammett, “The Hat Trick”, Ned Beaumont, 1st of 4 stories that will go together to make up The Glass Key (published 1931), 41^st of 45 stories in BM

~ Nels Leroy Jorgensen, “Boom Town”, 12th of 32 with Stuart “Black” Burton, ‘square-shooting gambler from the Southwest, often entangled with the law’, 16th of 39 stories in BM

~ Horace McCoy, “Frost Rides Again”, 5th of 14 Frost stories with ‘Capt. Jerry Frost, Texas (Air) Ranger’, 6^th of 17 stories in BM, reprinted in The Black Mask Boys (1985, Morrow) as “Frost Flies Alone”

~ Earl and Marion Scott, “Bitter Business”, 3rd of 6 stories with ‘Phil Craleigh, once brilliant lawyer, now a drunk, given to bouts of reform’, 12th of 17 stories in BM as a couple

~ Peter G. Thomas, “The Bell in the Fog”, ‘River pirates in NYC’, author’s sole appearance in BM

~ Raoul [Fauconnier] Whitfield, “Oval Face”, ‘Mal Ourney; part 4 (of 5), ‘The Crime Breeders’, presented as separate stories rather than conventional serial’, published in hardcover in 1930 by Knopf as Green Ice, 38th of 67 stories in BM [see also 24 stories as Ramon Decolta]

©Seattle Mystery Bookshop

The Wailing Frail x 4

1956 Gold Medal paperback original

all cover art by Barye Phillips

better image than previously posted

10th with private eye Shell Scott

British reprint

later 50s reprint

1960 reprint – 4th edition

Frank Miller’s “Famous Detective Pin-Up” portfolio

Frank Miller’s “Famous Detective Pin-Up” portfolio was published as PinUps at the back of Renegade Press’s “Ms. Tree Thrilling Detective Adventures”, #s 1-4, back in 1983.