Greg Clark Noir Art

  GREAT DETECTIVES & PEOPLE OF MYSTERY #34 MR. WONG Created by Hugh Wiley, James Lee Wong was San Francisco's famous Chinese sleuth.  Tall and lean at 6 foot and 165 pounds, the mandarin detective was a graduate of Yale and dressed in a severe black suit and always carried an umbrella, except when he was in his curio-filled Chinatown study where he wore flowing robes.  Wong was first seen in the pages of Colliers  magazine and came to the screen as portrayed by Boris Karloff.  The stories were full of white slavery and opium dens - pulpy tales of police brutality, the sexist treatment of women, and grisly murders. Hugh Wiley (1884-1968) was an engineer and author born in Zanesville, Ohio.  He left school while still a teenager but went on to build bridges, tunnels, railroads, mines, and power plants as an engineer and contractor.  His best series of stories featured James Lee Wong, and his most noteworthy books were short story collections of Orien...

  GREAT DETECTIVES & PEOPLE OF MYSTERY #33 FLASHGUN CASEY Jack Casey, tough news photographer for the Boston Express , made his fictional debut in the March 1934 issue of Black Mask .  It was the first of dozens of Casey stories in that magazine.  Casey was a hard drinking Irishman who enjoyed a "Front Page" type of camaraderie with his cronies on the Boston newspapers.  He had a gift for gab and a nose for trouble, who kept a bottle of hooch and a .38 in his desk drawer.  He was extremely fit, 6 foot 1 inch and 215 pounds - "all bone and muscle".  He was a sergeant with the AEF in France during WWI, but his advancing age and a trick knee made him 4F during WWII.  His resentment at this rejection coupled with his hair-trigger temper, causes a violent reaction to criminals who betray their country in the 1943 novel "Murder for Two". Casey, a bachelor, lives on the second floor of an old brownstone on Marlborough Street.  His editors and the Bos...

  GREAT DETECTIVES & PEOPLE OF MYSTERY #32 NICK & NORA CHARLES This husband-and-wife team was Dashiell Hammett's most popular creation, largely because of a successful series of motion pictures and long-running radio and TV series.  They represent Hammett's strongest attempt at humor.  (Nora: "I read where you shot five times in the tabloids".  Nick: "Not true.  He didn't come anywhere near my tabloids".)  Their one novel, "The Thin Man" (1934), is narrated in the first person by retired private detective Nick Charles (his real name - Nick is of Greek descent - is Charalambides).  He is a hard-drinking, fun-loving, wisecracking, once-tough playboy...and his wife Nora is more of the same.  A former operative of the Trans-American Detective Agency of San Francisco, Nick is now married to a millionairess and is content, even anxious, to give up the rough life and concentrate on drinking.  It is Nora who insists that he take on the case o...

GREAT DETECTIVES & PEOPLE OF MYSTERY #31 PERRY MASON   The most famous attorney in fiction is the hero of more than 80 novels, some of which have been published since his creator's death.  Perry Mason was born in 1891.  He is described as a big man, but he is not heavy.  Although he says that he has no time for sports or exercise he remains fit and performs well in situations involving physical danger.  He has long legs, broad shoulders, and piercing eyes in a rugged face.  His thick, wavy hair and excellent speaking voice make him attractive to many women.  The woman in his life is Della Street, the most famous secretary in fiction.  In "The Case of the Stuttering Bishop" Della says, "I wouldn't want to live unless I could work for a living."  Knowing that Mason would not permit his wife to work, she has, on five separate occasions, refused his proposal of marriage.  However, she has remained steadfastly loyal, risking her life and ...

  GREAT DETECTIVES & PEOPLE OF MYSTERY #30 DICK TRACY Chester Gould, born in Pawnee, Oklahoma in 1900, left for Chicago in 1921 to make his mark on the world.  He worked for every newspaper in the city, in their art departments, doing advertising and light-hearted comic strips - but it was the formidable Chicago Tribune that Gould had set his sights upon.  The self-proclaimed World's Greatest Newspaper had the greatest comic strips in America, and young Gould wanted to be associated with that elite group.  When Chester came to Chicago, Al Capone and the mobs operated with impunity, defying Prohibition and other vices.  This provided the inspiration for Dick Tracy.  As Gould said, "I decided that if the police couldn't catch the gangsters, I'd create a fellow who would."  Gould called his creation "Plainclothes Tracy" and submitted it to Captain Joseph Medill Patterson of the Chicago Tribune - New York Daily News Syndicate.  Patterson liked the...

  GREAT DETECTIVES & PEOPLE OF MYSTERY #29 HILDEGARDE WITHERS Hildegarde became known as the American Miss Marple.  Created by Stuart Palmer, she was a thin, angular, horse-faced spinster detective.  Formerly a school teacher, Miss Withers retires to devote her energy to aiding Inspector Oscar Piper of the NYPD in solving a long series of murder mysteries that began with "The Penguin Pool Murder" (1931) in which a body is discovered in a New York aquarium.  Miss Winters is noted for her odd, even eccentric choice of hats and the black cotton umbrella that she always carries.  She collects tropical fish, abhors alcohol and tobacco, and appears to have an irritable disposition.  She was based on Stuart Palmer's high school English teacher Miss Fern Hackett. Stuart Palmer (1905-1968) was born in Baraboo, Wisconsin and was a descendent of colonists who settled in Salem, Massachusetts in 1634.  He was educated at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Uni...