REHupa

One item that has been on my wish list, along with a dozen other items, is a volume containing all of Robert E. Howard’s detective stories, including those classified as “strange detective” stories. In the past there have been several volumes that featured Howard’s detective tales: Lord of the Dead (Grant, 1981), Two-Fisted Detective Stories (Cryptic, 1984), Graveyard Rats (Wildside, 2003), but not one that collects all of them.

Yeah, I know Howard hated writing detective yarns and more often than not, these yarns started out as straight detective stories, but quickly morphed into something else. It almost seemed as if Howard suddenly became bored, mid-sentence, and sent the story flying off its axis into a raging two-fisted, two-gun free-for-all. Even though he loathed writing this type of tale, he had a pretty good output in this genre and more than enough for a fairly thick volume. I enjoy reading these hardboiled Howard tales mainly because I love detective and mystery novels. From the old school guys like Hammett and Chandler to contemporary authors such as Burke and Connelly, there’s nothing like a good story told by a master storyteller.

Steve Harrison appeared in the most of Howard’s detective stories, totaling nine complete yarns plus at least one left unfinished. A couple of tales featured Butch Gorman and Brent Kirby. Steve Bender, Weary McGraw and the Whale starred in three more. Of course, the strange detective and some of the weird menace could be included. The most well know of this group is “Skull-Face,” which is primarily a horror story, but still a great detective tale in the tradition of Sax Rohmer.

I doubt if there is enough interest in Howard detective stories to warrant a Del Rey volume; better suited for The Robert E. Howard Foundation Press. Ideally the volume would be illustrated by Jim Steranko whose groundbreaking Red Tide graphic novel pioneered noir in comics.

Morgan adds: Howard’s detective stories are really not that out of the norm for the time. Fiction in Ten Detective Aces and Clues had stories by Howard’s colleagues in Weird Tales that had bizarre plots. Donald Wandrei’s “I.V. Frost” series, Arthur J. Burks’ midget detective, “Harlan Dyce,” E. Hoffmann Price’s “Pawang Ali,” and Cleve Adams’ “Violet McDade” series are not that different from Howard’s Steve Harrison stories. Black Mask was really out of the norm, Howard was really writing pretty mainstream pulp detective stories for the time.