Some of Whitfield's short stories, many he wrote under the
name of Ramon Decolta, reappeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery
Magazine (EQMM) in the late 1940s. One series of Jo Gar
stories that immediately comes to mind is THE RAINBOW MURDERS
published in EQMM from Feb to July of 1949.
They include: "The Rainbow Murders Begin"
(originally titled
"Diamonds of Dread" in Black Mask), "White Duck" ("The Man in
White"),
"Yellow Death" ("The Blind Chinese"), "Red Dawn", "Blue
Glass", and
"Rainbow Murders End" ("Diamonds of Death").
By the way, does anyone know if this series ever came out as
part of an edited volume of Whitfield short stories? I know
they are not part of Crippen & Landrau's JO GAR'S
CASEBOOK (2002).
Best, Harry
Quoting "Mark D. Nevins" <
nevins_mark@yahoo.com>:
>
> De-lurking momentarily to note that I read my first
Raoul Whitfield
> this week, and I really enjoyed it.
>
> DEATH IN A BOWL is a nice tight proto-hard-boiled
novel. As most of you
> know, Whitfield (astonishingly, he has *no*
Wikipedia entry!) was a
> contemporary of Hammett's; he seems to have written
just three novels
> but dozens of short stories (mostly ARGOSY and BLACK
MASK, I assume?).
>
> See here for a nice snapshot:
>
http://knucklelullaby.150m.com/raoulw/raoulwhitfieldhome.html
>
> DEATH IN A BOWL is a murder mystery with a great
cast of characters and
> locales, mostly taking place in and around
Hollywood. I'm generally not
> a fan of whodunnits, but in this case the prose
really carried the day
> for me--it's echt hard-boiled, and I can't believe
no film was ever
> made of this one, because it's almost impossible NOT
to "see" this
> novel in black-and-white as you read it, and some of
the dialogue begs
> to be heard aloud.
>
> I'm officially putting Whitfield onto my "faves"
list, and will turn to
> his other two novels real soon (I have the No Exit
editions, which I've
> found here and there--I note his stuff is not easy
to find.)
>
> Any Whitfield aficionados here?
>
> Best,
> Mark Nevins
>
> P.S. Tip of the hat to RARA-AVIAN Keith Logan, whose
off-List advice
> caused me to move Whitfield higher in my
stack.
>
>
>
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