The Great Detectives

by Otto Penzler (ed)

  This tied in with the initial concept of The Shadow, a feature which was preserved throughout the series. Always, his traits and purposes were defined through the observations or reactions of persons with whom he came in contact, which meant that the reader formed his opinion from theirs. Since The Shadow’s motto was “Crime does not pay,” that convinced the readers—like The Shadow’s own agents—that he could do no wrong. That, in simpler terms, meant that although he might be misinformed or unaware of certain circumstances, he never made mistakes. By the old rule “What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander,” whatever applied to the reader applied to the writer. It was up to Maxwell Grant to maintain The Shadow’s image constantly in mind and portray it faithfully and consistently.

  Thanks to the frequency with which the novels appeared—twice a month for ten consecutive years!—the reactions of readers were both rapid and frequent, thereby serving as guidelines for future novels. Many stories involved a “proxy hero,” whose fate was a bone of contention between The Shadow and the villains with whom he was currently concerned. Therefore, no fixed style of writing was required, since the “proxy” rather than The Shadow was temporarily the central character. Keen analysts have classified The Shadow novels in three patterns—the “classic,” the “thriller,” and the “hard-boiled”—and these frequently could be used in combination, producing a diversity of types which kept up the tempo and sustained reader interest through a constant expectancy that usually resulted in the unexpected.

  This gave The Shadow a marked advantage over mystery characters who were forced to maintain fixed patterns; and that, in turn, made it easy to write about him. There was never need for lengthy debate regarding what The Shadow should do next, or what course he should follow to keep in character. He could meet any exigency on the spur of the moment, and if he suddenly acted in a manner totally opposed to his usual custom, it could always be explained later by The Shadow himself, through the facile pen of Maxwell Grant.

  A noteworthy example was the question of The Shadow’s girasol. It was constantly described as “a magnificent fire opal, unmatched in all the world,” and in an early novel, The Shadow stated that it had come from a collection of rare gems long owned by the Russian czars. In a later novel, this was countered by a claim that the girasol was the eye of a Xinca idol given to The Shadow when he landed in the jungle as Kent Allard. Serious-minded readers were prompt to point out the discrepancy in these conflicting tales, but the answer was readily found by a search of The Shadow’s archives.

  Fire opals are found only in Mexico and since an idol normally has two eyes, it was obvious that one could have been stolen, thus finding its way into the czarist collection, from which The Shadow obtained it. Arriving in Yucatan, as Allard, The Shadow, by showing the mate to the remaining eye, naturally won the loyalty of the Xinca tribe and was given the idol’s leftover eye. So he actually had two girasols, each “unmatched” as it is practically impossible to find two opals that are exactly the same. Hence each story was correct, according to which girasol The Shadow happened to be wearing at the time.

  The Shadow’s very versatility opened a vast vista of story prospects from the start of the series onward. In the earlier stories, he was described as a “phantom,” an “avenger,” and a “superman,” so he could play any such parts and still be quite in character. In fact, all three of those terms were borrowed by other writers to serve as titles for other characters who flourished in what might aptly be styled “The Shadow Era.” Almost any situation involving crime could be adapted to The Shadow’s purposes; hence the novels ran the gamut from forthright “whodunit” plots to forays into the field of science fiction. The most inimitable of The Shadow’s features was his laugh, which could be weird, eerie, chilling, ghostly, taunting, mocking, gibing, sinister, sardonic, trailing, fading, or triumphant.

  Often, when a story ended on such a note, the very echoes of The Shadow’s mirth would set up the pattern for the next novel. It might involve unfinished business, or some theme suggested during the development of the story, or a way by which surviving crooks might think they could turn the tables on the victorious master. Always, in the finishing chapter of a story, The Shadow was really on the go, so that new situations naturally sprang to mind and unfinished plots would readily crystallize. Also, from my recollections as an author, I can definitely say that at the climax of a story, the mood that I adopted when writing as Maxwell Grant was invariably at a peak.

  The final rule was this: put The Shadow anywhere, in any locale, among friends or associates, even in a place of absolute security and almost immediately crime, menace, or mystery would begin to swirl about him, either threatening him personally or gathering him in its vortex to carry him off to fields where antagonists awaited. Always, when The Shadow defeated some monstrous scheme, he would be spurred on to tackle something bigger; while, conversely, master criminals, learning that one of their ilk had been eliminated, would logically profit by that loss and devise something more powerful to thwart The Shadow.

  In the story of The Crime Master, one supercriminal actually made all thoughts of evil profit or ill-gotten gains subordinate to his real purpose, which was to obliterate The Shadow and thus win the everlasting acclaim of crimedom. In all his well-calculated schemes of robbery and murder, he left loopholes that would enable The Shadow to counteract the impending crime, but only at risk of putting himself in traps from which escape would prove impossible.

  To set up the snares, the Crime Master used a large board with hundreds of squares representing the scene of crime-to-be, with dozens of men of various colors, representing police, detectives, criminals, lookouts, and victims. When the board was all set, he added a single black piece to represent The Shadow; then, from there, he worked out moves and countermoves, like a chess game in reverse, since the king was already in check at the start; and the purpose was to keep him from getting out of it, rather than merely adding stronger checks toward an ultimate mate.

  Needless to say, The Shadow did get out. That was his forte throughout all his adventures. Always, his escapes were worked out beforehand, so that they would never exceed the bounds of plausibility when detailed in narrative form. And that was the great secret of The Shadow.

  Michael Shayne

  Brett Halliday

  PRIVATE-DETECTIVE STORIES TRADITIONALLY involve tough guys who are not afraid to use their guns or their fists, who spend most of their time drinking and womanizing, and who are more often than not deeply cynical. Mike Shayne, the big redhead with the fists of a Paul Bunyan, breaks that stereotypical mold. Although he uses his fists in virtually every one of his more than sixty cases, he seldom uses his gun, relying more often on his brain. True, he has a strong partiality to cognac, but that somehow seems to fit the good-humored Shayne—the most famous private investigator in Miami.

  Michael Shayne, Private Detective, a short-lived radio series, featured Jeff Chandler in the title role. And Richard Denning portrayed Shayne in thirty-two one-hour episodes of a 1960 television series. A dramatic version of Murder Is My Business had a short stage run in 1948. But the Michael Shayne Mystery Magazine (which quickly became Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine) has been on the newsstands since September 1956. There have also been twelve Shayne films.

  Brett Halliday was one of the many pseudonyms of Davis Dresser, a prolific pulp fiction writer and author of countless Western, love, sex, adventure, and mystery stories for a variety of publications. He formerly owned Torquil & Company, a publishing firm which produced the Shayne novels for many years. One of the founding members of the Mystery Writers of America, Dresser lived in Santa Barbara, California, until his death at the age of 72 early in 1977.

  Michael Shayne

  by Brett Halliday

  I FIRST SAW THE MAN I have named Michael Shayne in Tampico, Mexico, many, many years ago. I was a mere lad working on a coast-wise oil tanker as a deckhand when we tied up at Tampico to take on a load of crude oil. After supper a small group o
f sailors went ashore to see the sights of a foreign port. I was among that group.

  We didn’t get very far from the ship, turning in at the first cantina we came to. We were all lined up at the bar sampling their tequila when I noticed a redheaded American seated alone at a small table overlooking the crowded room, with a bottle of cognac, a small shot glass, and a larger glass of ice water on the table in front of him. He was tall and rangy and had craggy features with bleak gray eyes which surveyed the scene with a sort of quizzical amusement. He appeared to be in his early twenties, and while I watched him he lifted the shot glass to his mouth and took a small sip of cognac, washing it down with a swallow of ice water.

  I don’t know what caused me to observe him so closely. Perhaps there was a quality of aloneness about him in that crowded cantina. He was a part of the scene, but apart from it. There was a Mexican playing an accordion in the middle of the room and several couples were dancing. There were other gaily dressed senoritas seated about on the sidelines and some of the sailors went to them to request a dance.

  I don’t know what started the fracas. Possibly one of the sailors asked the wrong girl for a dance. Suddenly there was a melee which quickly spread to encompass the small room. There were curses and shouts and the glitter of exposed knives. We were badly outnumbered and getting much the worst of the fight when suddenly out of the corner of my eye I saw the redheaded American shove the table away from him and get into the fight with big fists swinging.

  Each time he struck, a Mexican went down—and generally stayed down. I was struck over the head by a beer bottle and was trampled on by the fighting men. I must have lost consciousness for a moment because I was abruptly aware that the fight had subsided and I was lying in the middle of a tangle of bodies with blood streaming down my face from a broken head. Then I was dragged out of the tangle and set on my feet by the American redhead. He gave me a shove through the swinging doors and I stumbled and went down, to be picked up by my comrades who were streaming out the door behind me.

  We got away from there fast, back to the ship where we patched up broken heads and minor knife cuts.

  We went to sea the next morning and none of us knew what happened to the redhead after we left the cantina.

  I didn’t see him again until many years later in New Orleans. I had quit the sea as a means of livelihood and was barely eking out a precarious living by writing circulating library novels.

  I stopped by at a smoke-filled bar in the French Quarter for a drink and I glanced back over the rest of the room as I ordered a drink at the bar.

  There I saw him! Sitting alone at a booth halfway down the room with a shot glass and a larger drink of ice water before him.

  There could be no question that it was he. Several years older and with broader shoulders than I remembered, but with the same look of aloneness in his bleak gray eyes.

  I paid for my drink and carried it back to his booth with me. He looked puzzled when I slid into the booth opposite him, and I quickly reminded him of the fight on the Tampico waterfront and told him I was the sailor whom he had dragged out of the fight and shoved outdoors.

  A wide grin came over his face and he started to say something when a sudden chill came over his features. He was looking past me at the front door and I turned my head to see what he was seeing.

  Two men had entered the bar and were making their way toward us. He tossed off his cognac and slid out of the booth as they stopped beside us. He said harshly to me, “Stay here,” and started down the aisle with one burly man leading the way and the other following close behind. Thus they disappeared in the French Quarter, and I’ve never seen him again.

  But I have never forgotten him.

  Years later when I decided to try my hand at a mystery novel, there was never any question as to who my hero would be. I gave him the name of Michael Shayne because it seemed to fit somehow, and wrote Dividend on Death and began sending it out to publishers and getting it back with a rejection slip.

  All and all, it was rejected by twenty-two publishers before I gave up on it and laid it aside on a shelf.

  In the meantime I had written another mystery novel under the pseudonym of Asa Baker. It was titled Mum’s the Word for Murder and was written in the first person, laid in El Paso. It was rejected by only seventeen publishers before Frederick Stokes brought it out.

  Then came one of those coincidences that do occur in real life. Soon after Mum’s the Word for Murder was published, I was visited by a salesman from Stokes who had my book in stock. He was accompanied to Denver where I was then living by a salesman from Henry Holt and Company (one of the few publishers who had not had the opportunity to reject Dividend on Death). I invited the two of them out to my home for dinner that night, and during the course of a mildly alcoholic evening I was congratulated by both of them on Mum’s the Word for Murder.

  I thanked them but told them I had a much better mystery written and laid away after twenty-two rejections. The Holt salesman told me that Henry Holt was just starting a new mystery line, and suggested that I send Dividend on Death to them. I did so, and Bill Sloane (then editor at Henry Holt) liked it and sent me a contract.

  Thus, Michael Shayne was finally launched.

  I had not thought of it as the first of a series when I wrote it, but Bill Sloane wrote and asked me for a second book using the same set of characters, and I did The Private Practice of Michael Shayne.

  The first book had been the story of Phyllis Brighton, a very young and very lovely girl who was accused of murdering her mother. She fell in love with Shayne during the course of the book and tried to make love to him as it ended. Shayne was many years older than she, and he patted her paternally on the shoulder and advised her to come back after she had grown up.

  I used her as a subsidiary character in the second book, and they were engaged to be married as the book ended.

  Twentieth Century-Fox bought The Private Practice of Michael Shayne as a movie to star Lloyd Nolan, and gave me a contract for a series of movies starring Nolan as Shayne. For this, they paid me a certain fee for each picture starring Shayne, promising me an additional sum for each book of mine used in the series.

  But they didn’t use any of my stories in the movies. Instead, they went out and bought books from my competitors, changing the name of the lead character to Michael Shayne. I was surprised and chagrined by this because I thought my books were as good or better than the ones they bought from others, and I was losing a substantial sum of money each time they made a picture.

  I finally inquired as to the reason from Hollywood and was told it was because Shayne and Phyllis were married and it was against their policy to use a married detective.

  Faced with this fact of life, I decided to kill off Phyllis to leave Shayne a free man for succeeding movies. This I did between Murder Wears a Mummer’s Mask and Blood on the Black Market (later reprinted in softcover as Heads You Lose).

  I had her die in childbirth between the two books, but alas! Fox decided to drop the series of movies before Blood on the Black Market was published, and the death of Phyllis had been in vain. I have had hundreds of fan letters asking what became of Phyllis, and now the unsavory truth is told.

  With the movies no longer a factor, in my next book, Michael Shayne’s Long Chance, I took Shayne on a case to New Orleans where he met Lucile Hamilton and she took the place of Phyllis as a female companion. I brought her back to Miami with Shayne as his secretary, and in that position she has remained since.

  I don’t know exactly what the situation is between Shayne and Lucy Hamilton. They are good comrades and she works with him in most of his cases, but I don’t think Shayne will ever marry again. He often takes Lucy out to dinner, and stops by her apartment for a drink and to talk, and she always keeps a bottle of his special cognac on tap.

  He has only one real friend in Miami: Timothy Rourke, crime reporter on one of the Miami papers. Rourke is tall, lean, and slightly disheveled appearing, a boon drinking comp
anion for Shayne. He accompanies Shayne on most of his cases, hoping to get an exclusive story after the case is ended.

  Shayne is also on good terms with Will Gentry, Miami’s chief of police. Gentry likes and admires Shayne, and is inclined to look the other way when Shayne oversteps the strict letter of the law in solving a case.

  On the other hand, Shayne’s sworn enemy is Peter Painter, chief of detectives of Miami Beach, across Biscayne Bay from Miami. They have had numerous clashes when a case takes Shayne into Painter’s territory, from which Painter always emerges as second best.

  I know nothing whatever about Shayne’s background. As far as I am concerned he came into being in Tampico, Mexico, some forty years ago. I don’t know where or when he was born, what sort of childhood and upbringing he had. It is my impression that he is not a college man, although he is well educated, has a good vocabulary, and is articulate on a variety of subjects.

  He has no special or esoteric knowledges to help him solve his cases. A reader can identify with him because he is an ordinary guy like the reader himself. He solves his cases by using plain common sense and a lot of perseverance, and absolute fearlessness.

  When confronted with a problem, he assesses it from a practical viewpoint, following out each lead doggedly until coming up against a stone wall, then dropping that lead and following up the next one until it peters out.

  He carries a gun seldom, trusting to his fists to get him out of any trouble he gets into. As a result he has taken some bad beatings as he goes along thrusting himself into danger.

  In several of my books I have mentioned that Shayne was an operative for a large detective agency before setting up in Miami on his own, and as a result he has friends in different cities throughout the country on whom he can call for information or help if a case requires it.