Re: RARA-AVIS: Need some help

John Woolley (jwoolley@dna420.mcit.com)
Tue, 16 Mar 1999 17:09:30 -0700 (MST) Geir Glosvik asks about some really obscure guys:

> Now the help I need: some authors/books I can't find in my reference books.
> And from the staggering amount of knowledge I've registered on rara-avis,
> maybe you can help me out:
> Who was Shipley Adams and when did he publish 'Murder Well Begun'? And
> Robert Chestnut, Lewis Clay and Charles Clos? I'll just mention Barry Cord
> and James Dark before I stop. I have a few more names, but maybe you'll let
> me bother you some other time.

According to Hubin's _Bibliography of Crime Fiction_, Shipley
Adams published four books -- _Murder Unsolved_ (Boardman,
1947), _Money by Menaces_ (Fiction House, 1948), _Murder in
the First Person_ (Boardman, 1948), and _Murder Well Begun_
(Boardman, 1950). At least the last two featured the series
character "Inspector Harrow".

James Dark published at least 16 thrillers (judging from their
titles like "Operation Ice Cap", "Sea Scrape", "Assignment
Tokyo"), mostly starring "Mark Hood", between 1952 and 1971. A
note in Hubin says that "most if not all of these titles were
originally published by Horwitz in Australia", and lists Signet
as the American publisher for about half of them. WorldCat
notes that several of them say "A Mark Hood Thriller" on the
cover.

Chestnut, Clay, and Cord aren't listed in Hubin; but checking
in WorldCat, we find that Barry Cord (born in 1913) wrote
Westerns, *lots* and *lots* of Westerns, from around 1951 to
1970 or so. Lewis Clay is listed as the author of _The Wanton
Hour_ (Pyramid, 1955), and nothing else. And Robert Chestnut
shows up with _The Syndicate_ (Newsstand Library, 1960), and
nothing else.

There's nothing on Charles Clos in Hubin or WorldCat or the
Library of Congress, but I did find a reference to him in the
British Library catalogue as the author of _Call It Experience:
A Novel_ (London: Brown, Watson, 1959).

-- Fr. John Woolley

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