Richard S. PratherCríticas

“And listen you, I’m older than I look.”

“Then she shut the door and I thought about sitting down on the grass and rolling around howling, and I thought about jumping up and running back and crashing through the door, but what I did was go out to the Cad and lean my head against the cool steering wheel for a couple seconds, then shiver spasmodically and put the buggy in gear thinking that Jules Osborne should have told me more about Diane, and offered me at least twenty thousand dollars.” — Hot-Rock Rumble

This is a terrific trio of Shell Scott stories from Richard Prather. Prather’s Shell Scott series reads like a slightly mellower version of Spillane’s Mike Hammer, but with a wry sense of humor. Between the luscious tomatoes and pulp violence there is quite a bit of humor in Prather’s narrative, the hard-bitten detective Shell Scott his voice. Three For the Shroud is a trio of shorter Shell Scott stories, but if you’re collecting these wildly popular books from yesteryear, don’t skip it, because it’s a blast.

Blood Ballot is the first of the stories and might be the best, but only by a hair. Shell is working for Senator Paul Hershey in this one, trying to protect him from the corrupt Blake, who is attempting to get the goods on Hershey so he can smear him in the press and make his boy a shoe-in this election. Blake plays rough, and there are two strikingly different hot tomatoes for Shell to deal with in Lorry Weston and Martita Delgado. Evidence in a safe everybody wants and a kidnapping come into play before Shell wraps this one up. Great fun.

The second tale, Dead Giveaway, is quirkier and funnier, and is also good fun. When a mousey girl named Ilona walks into Shell’s office looking for her missing husband, her story leads him to the conclusion that someone is out to kill her. Shell soon has his hands full with more than one Ilona, as he goes from girly show to girly show trying to figure out what’s going on. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got do it. A snazzy redhead mistakes Shell for a doctor in this one and it’s hilarious! Will Shell survive the Hungarian Hurricane? Will a big inheritance turn an ugly duckling into a swan? You’ll have to read it to find out, but the middle story is not to be taken too seriously, it’s just good fun.

The third tale in the trilogy, Hot-Rock Rumble, is on a par with Blood Ballot. Shell’s trying to recover a stolen necklace from a guy’s mistress so she doesn’t start talking to his wife. She seems like jailbait to Scott, but he barely makes it out of her place with his, er, integrity intact once he meets her and experiences her charms. A little stoolie Shell knows points him to a tomato named Lois who has an entire carnival in her walk, and dresses the color of drinks — Shell can’t wait to see the champagne number. When someone turns up dead in Shell’s Caddie, however, Scott has to tackle a guy as big as a circus to avenge them, and get out from under a murder charge.

Two terrific pulp stories with a very good one sandwiched between them, it’s hard to go wrong on this one if you like Shell Scott, and why wouldn’t you?

“From the sea’s edge fifty yards or so away I could hear the boom of surf, and the tangy bracing scent of the ocean was exhilarating in my nostrils.”


First appearing in the December 1954 edition of Manhunt, Richard S. Prather’s short story, Crime of Passion, features his creation, Shell Scott, and it’s a hoot. Heavy on the humor and light on the mystery, this one is a better supplemental story for Shell Scott fans than it is an introduction to Prather’s wonderful — and incredibly lucrative — P.I. creation. Scott had a lot in common with Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer, but Prather also played the noir for laughs — though not to the screwball level Craig Rice did — and it’s that blend which made Shell Scott a household name. Prather had sold over 40 million copies by the time he passed, and anyone who’s read a Shell Scott novel knows why.

Perhaps the best way to think of Shell Scott, for those either of a certain age, or with a lot of pop culture knowledge, is to imagine that stocky little cartoon guy from those old Hawaiian Punch commercials. The difference is that Scott had a gun, and he got involved in some pretty tough little noir detective stories. There was always humor though, sometimes self-deprecating; combined with Prather’s smooth writing style, it was a surefire winner with the public, who gobbled up Prather’s Shell Scott stories nearly as fast as they gobbled up Spillane’s Mike Hammer tales.

This little bauble is a hoot from beginning to end. Shell’s trying to get through the front door of a swanky Malibu house by the sea, because he’s been invited by Dolly. The knockout blonde who answers the door initially is disappointed Shell isn’t who she’s expecting, and she gives him the brushoff. Not to be discouraged from a Hawaiian luau full of laughter and scantily-clad pretty girls — like the blonde who answered the door — Shell keeps trying. But the next person he encounters is no more friendly:

“He was built like a .45 automatic, and he was loaded.”

It really is a wild party, and once Shell finally gets inside, he runs into the blonde again:

“Saying she wore clothes would be, perhaps, an overstatement, since she was bare-foot and wore a red and black and green sarong that hugged her waist and hips the way I’d have liked to.”

Shell quickly gets revenge for being poked, only to discover the guy’s the host of the shindig, so he heads down to the beach, where the fun is really in high gear:

“Well, if everybody here was crazy, this was no time for me to be sane.”

Shell’s having a great time, until he discovers something a bit gruesome down there at the pig roast. Shell tries to sober up long enough — even putting off a gorgeous redhead, which goes against his nature — to get the cops out there.

While it’s nothing much, it’s also a blast that’ll put a smile on your face. As a mystery, Crime of Passion is almost gossamer. As a piece of humor, it works better if you’re familiar with Shell Scott — as readers of Manhunt would have been. Those unfamiliar with the Shell Scott mystery novels who pick this up because of the title, are going to be in for a huge disappointment. I can easily see three stars at best for someone reading this cold, without any background or context. For fans of Shell Scott, however, and the wonderful and unique blend of grit and guffaws perfected by Richard S. Prather, this short story is a sheer delight.

Richard S. Prather’s name isn’t as well known today as Mickey Spillane’s, and he never became the cultural icon that Mick did. But he was a fabulous writer in the hardboiled vein, whose sales and popularity were right up there with the best of them for many years.

Whereas Spillane had Mike Hammer, Prather had Sheldon “Shell” Scott to make his way through the hardboiled and often violent streets of mystery/detective fiction. Unlike Mickey, however, Prather, whose first Shell Scott book, Case of the Vanishing Beauty, appeared in 1950, was very prolific. He left a literal slew of Shell Scott stories for us to enjoy.

Also unlike Mickey, Prather filled his Shell Scott novels with almost as much offbeat humor as violence, and the combination proved irresistible, especially during the glory days of Shell Scott in the 1950s and '60s. By the time he passed away at 85 in 2007, three years after losing his wife of nearly 60 years, Tina, his books had sold over 40 million copies.

The Sleeper Caper first appeared in Manhunt, and it's one of his shorter Shell Scott stories. The Sleeper Caper is a terrific and enjoyable story, and a perfect way to acquaint yourself with Prather’s creation to see if you like him. In Prather’s case, this is important because a great number of his Shell Scott novels were released on Kindle, and now have been packaged into boxed sets which are are a real bargain.

Shell is in Mexico to lend bookie Cookie Martini a hand. Cookie’s been losing a bundle because something very funny is going on around the horse track in Mexico. Too many long-shots have been paying off, and it’s obvious the fix is in. Scott’s at the track in Mexico as the story opens, and naturally there are a couple of hot tomatoes on his arms in Vera and Elena. When a tough little jockey refuses to throw a race, it doesn’t end well, and Scott wants revenge.

Shell knows Hammond and his right-hand man, Rath, are behind it, but before he can wrap this one up, things get pretty ugly. Right away Shell is on the wrong end of a brutal beating, but it isn’t enough to send him back home, not by a long-shot. When a dancer shows Scott the knife scars on her belly, he realizes someone is even more sadistic — and to his shock, masochistic — than he thought, which places a doll in danger. Said doll is in need of saving as only a guy like Shell Scott can.

The Sleeper Caper has a great, if violent ending, but there is a smoothness here in the writing, and within the flow of the story. In addition, Prather’s trademark humor lightens the mood at just the right moments, making this a truly enjoyable short story. A fine introduction to Prather’s wonderful Shell Scott stories, which will make you want to grab the novels up while they’re still being offered on Kindle. A fun read!

Richard S. Prather never became the cultural icon that Mickey Spillane did, but he was a fabulous writer in the hardboiled vein whose sales and popularity were right up there with the best of them for many years. Prather’s detective was Sheldon “Shell” Scott, who made his way through the hardboiled streets with a lot of humor, making him a softer — and way funnier — version of the more serious Mike Hammer type.

It’s the easy narrative flow of Prather and that humor which make most of the Shell Scott series such a blast to read, even all these years later. The series began in 1950 and over that decade and the next, Prather’s Shell Scott stories, with their irresistible blend of violence and humor — often self-deprecating humor — outsold almost everyone but Spillane. By the time Prather passed at the age of 85, he’d sold over forty-million books.

Published in 1965, Dead Man’s Walk is an absolute blast. It has everything you could want in a Shell Scott story; a tropical setting as Shell sets sail for Verde Island in the Caribbean on the Wanderer II, with hot tomato Vanessa by his side; a Hunan Voodoo Priest with big steel teeth who immediately puts a curse on Shell upon his arrival — and of course gets knocked on his kisser; a Voodoo Priestess named Dria who’s also a hot tomato, and might need Shell’s help; people dropping like flies with no apparent cause of death except said voodoo; and a “voodoo” duel between Shell and Mordieux in the tropics which is both exciting and laugh-out-loud hilarious. And oh yeah, Shell figures out who has really been doing the killings, and why.

It all began — we get a flashback — when a former client of Shell’s bequeathes to him in his will a piece of Sunrise, a successful club in Verde that just about everyone’s heard about but the not-so-hip Shell. When the luscious Vanessa wants to join him in checking the place out, what’s Shell to do but let her come along? Of course, when Shell arrives there’s Mordieux putting a curse on him, and everyone around the joint is having trouble staying alive. It’s more atmosphere than plot in this one — though at the end, there’s more going on than you thought — but it’s a very fun ride. There’s one hilariously written scene about a bird watcher during a high speed chase that will have you laughing so hard you might bust a gut.

Shell almost goes down for the count when someone poisons him, but Dria, whose father may have been murdered by the powerful Mordieux, uses her own voodoo skills to save him. Between that, and Vanessa getting snatched, Shell’s had about all he can take in this tropical paradise, and plans out a confrontation with Mordieux the likes of which readers haven’t seen since Harry Potter and that guy whose name shall not be spoken.

It’s best not to think too hard about the plot of this one, and just enjoy the ride. Like a lot of Prather's work, it’s sharp, funny, exciting, and it will definitely leave a smile on your face when you turn the last page, as a lot of the Shell Scott stories have a tendency to do. A fabulous entry in a fun series which shouldn’t be forgotten. Thanks to Prather's fun Shell Scott series becoming available in boxed sets on Kindle as of late, and at a bargain price, an entirely new generation is discovering why this cat sold over forty-million books. This entry in particular is fun stuff, and is sure to make most readers a fan.

382/59-Αστυνομική νουβέλα με ιδιαίτερο ενδιαφέρον. Μια εταιρεία με άγνωστο ιδιοκτήτη , με νόμιμους και μη τρόπους προσπαθεί να αγοράσει όλες τις ιδιοκτησίες που έχουν πρόσβαση στη παραλία της πόλης, με σκοπό το κέρδος.
Εμπλέκονται αστυνόμοι, μπράβοι, μέλη του διοικητικού συμβουλίου και πολλοί άλλοι. Ο Σελ Σκωτ μετά από άπειρο ξύλο που δέχεται σε όλη τη πορεία της ιστορίας !!! εξιχνιάζει την υπόθεση με τη βοήθεια μιας νεαρής δημοσιογράφου.

Private detective Shell Scott receives a phone call from Black actress Natasha Antoinette asking him to hurry over to magazine editor Gordon Waverley's. Upon arrival, he discovers a badly beaten Finley Pike dead on the floor and a dazed Waverley standing over him.

After a long investigation where Scott survived two assassination attempts and other mayhem, he solves the case. The long fake courtroom drama used by Scott to solve to solve the case slowed the narrative down and as well, didn't seem very realistic.

I read a number of Shell Scott novels as a teenager and really enjoyed them. Discovering this one at a garage sale recently, had made my day. Not as exciting to read as I remember.

Nice collection of short stories that range from good to excellent. Each story was entertaining with the obligatory twist that makes a great short.

I'm off to read Volume 2

Back in the 1950s, Richard S. Prather’s novels featuring Shell Scott, a white-blonde ex-Marine turned private eye, was wildly popular. The character was unrepentantly sexist, racist, and probably every other kind of –ist you could name. The books were filled with luscious broads, not-too-bright bad guys, flying bullets, and dead bodies, many of them delivered into that condition by Scott himself. The hero was endearingly goofy and not the sharpest crayon in the box, but he was generally smarter than the bad guys, most of whom had appropriately colorful names like Young Egg Foo, Garlic, and Three-Eyes.

“Strip for Murder” was the eighth book in the series, and many critics consider it the one in which Prather really hit his stride. It’s a full-out loopy adventure that takes place largely at a nudist colony, and the title character, who also narrates, takes full advantage of the ogling opportunities there before managing to escape the bad guys in a hot-air balloon which eventually fetches up on the roof of Los Angeles’ city hall, with the waggish detective clad in an all-over suntan and nothing else.

Don’t try to analyze this, or any of the Prather offerings, and leave your politically-correct outrage at the door. Just give yourself over to a couple of hours following a guy who tools around 1950s L.A. in a yellow Cadillac convertible and makes cracks like “she wore a V-necked white blouse as if she were the gal who’d invented cleavage”.½

Not bad although it is dated.

It's not a bad book for a beach read or a travel companion. Although, these days people are more likely to peruse social media on trains, plane's and automobiles. Seriously, it could be about 100 pages shorter and still tell the story. It drags somewhat in the middle. I think some writer's like Chandler or Stout age well. The story and atmosphere hold up. This one got a little tiring and a little dated. Not a bad novel as such. But, it didn't leave me wanting more.

An entertaining collection of short stories in this genre, with a nice, vintage feel to them. Most stories leave you guessing as to the ending. One story I didn't like, but the rest were good.

This book represents my introduction to Richard Prather's work and what an introduction. These three short pieces are among the best classic noir I have read. Not only is his writing crisp but his tongue- in- cheek descriptions are amazing. The quality of his writing is among the best ever. Two of these stories are about Shell Scott, Prather's version of Phillip Marlowe, a tough talking tough fighting private eye who tangles with the racket boys and protects damsels in distress. Nonstop
action. I would give this many more stars if I could.

Two Classic Detectives Meet

Chester Drum and Shell Scott together! It's like Batman and Superman getting together. The Shell Scott mysteries can often be a little too silly, a little too cornball, but this one is a flat-out solid adventure where the action never stops from beginning to end. Told in alternating chapters with Prather's Shell Scott narrating one chapter and Marlowe's Chester Drum narrating the next, this is a great story filled with crooked unions, monsters, thugs, secret documents, missing witnesses, sexy women, and more. The battle takes our detectives from coast to coast and back again and is just a whole lot of great action. This would definitely make a great movie.

In some ways, the story of Tony Romero, the protagonist of The Peddler, is similar to the later story of Tony Montana of the Scarface movie. It is the story of a nobody from a nowhere background determined to rise up in the ranks of criminal organized crime with a quickness that demonstrates his keen determination. Here, the criminal organization is not peddling drugs, but human flesh.

Here, Romero meets Maria Casino, who had known from high school days, and finds that she is working in one of the houses in San Francisco and is amazed by how much dough flows through the houses to the crime bosses. He saw her as she hurried out of the Green Room and "Something about her stirred memory in his brain and he walked slowly after her, watching the black skirt swirl above her rounded calves, the slow, liquid ripple of her hips." After having dinner, he queries about why she only got half the dough from her tricks and finds out that there were guys who ran the show, Sharkey and Angelo.

Romero finds that Maria is working a party later that night and he knows some of the players there and finagles an introduction. When he gets to the party (after spending the evening sweating about whether she would come through with his invite), he thinks that it was one of those places that smelled like money. "It made him think of fat guys getting their pink faces patted in barber shops, and slant-eyed women with gold douche bags." He also meets a slinky brunette, Ginny, Sharkey's wife. "[S]he was a hot one. She couldn't be more than twenty-five or twenty-six, and she was built like a burlesque stripper."

Soon, Romero meets the boss (Sharkey) and works his way into the organization. He sets up an argument with one of the chieftains and soon takes over his district and eventually Romero takes on the boss himself and ousts him to take over and run all the houses in the city. No one is fooled that Romero is anything but ambitious and that anything he does is by accident. He is moving up the ladder. He wants the money and the power.

Of course, there is always another boss (Angelo) and, in taking over so quickly, Romero finds himself blackmailed and then eventually forced to leave the city and ousted from power. Angelo is a snake in the grass and the real power no matter who is running the houses.

Although the plot itself is not terribly complicated, it is a well-written and engrossing story that captures the reader immediately. It is a story of blind ambition that knows no bounds and Prather does an excellent job of capturing the psyche of Romero.

Another fun Shell Scott romp from the 60s. Shell is on a dude ranch to protect a bevy of soft-porn actresses. The case brings him up against the usual racketeer boss and his lunkhead stooges and his most fearsome foe ever-a horse named Diablo.

Mrs. Gladys Jellicoe has a serious problem and needs the help of private detective Shell Scott. He has come to her home in the Hollywood Hills from his office in the Hamilton Building on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles this warm September morning in response to her phone call. While she may have called him because she appears to be extremely well preserved--- much like a mummy-- apparently the real reason she called is the fact that her ex-husband is missing.

She believes him to be dead. Wilfred Jefferson Jellicoe is supposed to send her a monthly alimony check of three thousand dollars on or before the first of the month. “Jelly” as she calls him has now missed two payments. She has done some checking around of her own and has determined that he has not been seen at the Cavendish House in Hollywood for several days now. That is where he has been staying recently and he has not checked out. She has no idea where her ex-husband, at one time the assistant to legendary Hollywood movie mogul Gideon Cheim is, or why Jelly’s wallet was found in a seedy nightclub known as “The Panther Room.”

While she thinks Shell Scott’s going rate of one hundred dollars a day is rather expensive, she wants her missing alimony money as well as to find Jelly. She grudgingly agrees to pay and Shell Scott is on the case. One that will take him all across the Los Angeles area, into some adult activities with certain beautiful ladies, and a number of violent confrontations with several less than savory characters. That is when he isn’t smoking, drinking, or discussing things with the local cops.

Set in the 60’s, Shell Scott is the classic “man’s man.” He does it all and then some while making sure to be one step ahead of the bad and good guys alike. A fun read, The Cheim Manuscript: A Shell Scott Novel, twists and turns its way through 200 pages plus of mayhem and chaos all done with a slightly sarcastic tone. My first experience with a Shell Scott novel was highly entertaining and well worth the read.

The Cheim Manuscript: A Shell Scott Novel
Richard S. Prather
Pocket Books
February 1969
Paperback
215 Pages

This paperback was supplied by Barry Ergang years ago for me to read and review. He has been hounding me every so often about it ever since. In conniving desperation,

Kevin R. Tipple ©2016

In the cut-throat world of organized crime, Tony Romero was headed straight for the top. His territory: the brothels of San Francisco. But the path was littered with bodies and broken dreams - some of them his. This is a tough, mean story about a sociopathic young man who claws his way to the top of the prostitution rackets of 1950s San Francisco and who is ironically undone by an ex-hooker. Originally published in 1952 under pseudonym "Douglas Ring" the story delivers a vicious portrayal of the criminal lifestyle. Although the story loses it way a bit at the halfway point it is still a hugely entertaining and well-written tale of criminal hubris. Prather’s prose is smooth and formal, keeping the plot moving but not delving too deeply into character. Although not the best from the Hard Case Crime imprint (this is volume 27) it is still a fine read.

Shell Scott is, in my opinion, one of the greatest characters in pulp fiction. He is a 6" 2' man with shocking white hair and eyebrows. Kill the Clown is a great example of the genius of Richard Prather. The book starts off fast and never lets up by introducing great characters and hysterical situations faster than a runaway train. Scott is hired to prove the innocence of a beautiful woman's brother, who is wrongly accused of murder and awaiting an appointment with death in just 3 days. This Scott novel is unique in that we know from the beginning who the murderer is. The fun of the book comes from what Scott goes through to prove the mans innocence. This book is great fun and i fabulous intro to the world of Shell Scott for anyone not familiar with Mr. Prather's book.

This has really dated badly. I'd leave it until you have no more Shell Scott books to read.

A skinny dipping party comes to an abrupt end when a body is found in the pool. While trying to discover who killed the Hollywood secretary, Shell Scott has to face a belligerent apeman, a snooty gossip columnist and 2 lovely ladies vying for his attentions. It's another enjoyable romp with the PI that eschews the usual organized crime connections of many of his cases.

Shell Scott has to figure out who is blackmailing 3 Hollywood stars. The suspects are 2 rival gang bosses, each with his own deadly crew of killers (with names like Viper and Gangrene). Since this is a Shell Scott case, our hero finds himself sneaking a python into a hospital room, framed for the murder of one boss, and kidnapping the other boss from his bedroom. The reveal is done in a style copied and perfected by the Mission Impossible tv show. All in all, a pretty good story if you're a Scott fan.

above average work for mister prather, but surely they could find a betteer title than this "Dead Bang."½

Another good novel by Mr. Prather. It seems that for whatever reason, Shell Scott becomes more of a detective than a womanizer when his adventures are chronicled under the Penguin name, although this copy, this first edition isTOR. Whatever, Shell meets a woman client who is just absolutely exciting to him (that means she is breathing), and he helps find her for her father, who turns out to be a pretty good old geezer, for a criminal.

This work was one of Prather's last, and I swear to you he was on an improvement kick that may have made him downright wonderful had he lived long enouigh. I enjoyed the heck out of this one, especially the beginnings of friendship between Shell and Gunnar Lindstrom, the multi-millionaire genius who seemed to melt in Shell's mouth, so to speak. The fact that Shell stuck with one woman all the way through didn't hurt, either, and having her make the break for her career wa a good touich as well.

The two literary bents Prather owns appear in this work. Of course, the detailed description of love-making is normal. We expect that. But the purple prose he uses trying to sound sophisicated with his doctor and cop friens is not only unnecessary, but prohibitive toward enjoying the book. One wold think that when one has some 30 plus books under his belt, maybe five decades of living, that he would be self conscious enough to worik a lot harder to put out a more poliched product. That being said, his story line and imaginative content ae excellent, and the reader always loves it when the hero defeats something like la cosa nostra. It's about as realistic as a unicorn,, but it is nice. The character Bludgett herein is someone I wish Prather would keep around. He reminds of one of the three stooges.

This is one of Prather's better novels; maybe those he published with pocket books were not as heavily laden with breasts and thighs as his earlier books. that is appreicatede from us story buffs. Well, the story is alive and well herein and so is RSP's characterization, with Putrid and Burper and Luddy et al the hoods. If theere is a problem with Scott, it's his speechifying with Sampson, Captain of Homicide for LAPD and a straight arrow. The two are unujsally matched and it would have been good if Prather had written a novel telling how Sampson and Scott becamed such good fvriends.