In a message dated 5/16/2002 1:37:36 PM Eastern Daylight
Time, Jeremy writes:
<< I have never seen any reference to Chet Drum
anywhere
at all. Are they in the same vein as Gall, Helm
and
Durrrell? Are they widely available? Are they any
good? >>
I enjoy the Chester Drum series but would not rank them near
the Gold Medal top rank. They are solid entertainments. From
what you've commented on so far, I think you might enjoy
them. Drum began as a Washington DC based PI but later in the
series, most of the novels were based outside the US. After
the original novel or two with standard titles like THE
SECOND LONGEST NIGHT, The Drum novels settled into a pattern
(and GM loved this sort of branding) of TERROR IS MY TRADE,
MANHUNT IS MY MISSION, DANGER IS MY LINE, and on and on. At
some point in the early 60s, the switch was made to DRUM
BEAT--BERLIN, DRUM BEAT--MADRID with women's names used also
as in DRUM BEAT--ERICA. At this point in Marlowe's life he
was living in Europe.
Marlowe then re-invented himself as a writer with best-seller
aimed novels published by major hardback publishers. The bios
sometimes would say author of X number of novels and the
number listed counted only those after re-invention.
He came to one Bouchercon and was a great storyteller and
certainly did not seem ashamed of the PBOs he had written, as
the later blurbs seemed to imply.
He was a Richard Carroll recruit to Gold Medal and like
several others did not take to the later editor Knox
Burger.
To back up a few years, Marlowe was born Milton Lesser and
was a well-known science fiction fan who broke into the SF
pulps around 1950. His output increased and he needed other
names and Marlowe was the name often used for mysteries,
although it also was used on a few science fiction stories.
While he was doing SF novels under the Lesser name, he
published some mysteries for Ace Books in the mid-50s and
launched the Drum series for GM. The Drum series took off and
he was far more successful with the Marlowe books, although
the Lesser name appeared on a few SF novels into the
60s.
He began using the Marlowe name in real life and eventually
made the legal change.
Interestingly enough, this is somewhat similar to Evan
Hunter, who was born S.A. Lombino. Both Lesser/Marlowe and
Lombino/Hunter worked for the Scott Meredith Agency (although
their time there as employees did not IIRC overlap) and were
long time clients. Hunter, of course, also took his pseudonym
for his legal name.
Lesser/Marlowe wrote other of interest to this list under
other names as well, such as THE FALL OF MARTY MOON by Andrew
Frazer (Avon 1960).
A lot more than you probably needed to know about Chet Drum.
As for my time in Brussels, I officially switched back to my
companies payrole at the start of 2001 but maintained my flat
and spent two weeks a month there through March. I have been
back on holiday. As for others on the list in Brussels,
Etienne lives near Brussels according to a post in response
to your first posting.
Richard Moore
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