RARA-AVIS: Shaft

From: DJ-Anonyme@webtv.net
Date: 30 Mar 2007


In an article speculating on whether or not Donald Bain had ghostwritten Margaret Truman's novels (www.weeklystandard.com/Content/ Public/Articles/000/000/001/886tuxmk.asp), Jon L Breen wrote:

"Employing a ghostwriter on a work of fiction is never more dubious than when the putative author really is a writer. Brett Halliday (creator of Mike Shayne), Leslie Charteris (creator of the Saint), and Ernest Tidyman (creator of Shaft) all turned to ghosts to carry on the exploits of their famous characters."

How many Shaft novels were there? I have three: Shaft, Shaft Amongst the Jews and Shaft's Big Score. All three are credited to Tidyman, though only the first two are copyrighted by him. The third is copyrighted by the studio that made the film of that title. I'm guessing that means it was a novelization, perhaps (probably?) not by Tidyman.

Also, I haven't read any of these. Are they any good?

Mark



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