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Chase, James Hadley

Page history last edited by Bill Kelly 14 years, 7 months ago
Source: Books and Writers

 

James Hadley Chase was a pseudonym for René Brabazon Raymond (1906-1985), who wrote also as James L. Docherty, Ambrose Grant, and Raymond Marshall.

 

London-born former children's encyclopedia salesman and book wholesaler, who was inspired by the works of hardboiled American crime writers, and wrote No Orchids For Miss Blandish (1939). It became a huge success and is still claimed to be one of the bestselling mysteries ever published. Although Chase produced around 40 thrillers and gangster stories set in the United States, he only went there on short visits.

 

Chase was born in London as the son of an army officer. He was educated at King's School, Rochester, Kent. He left home at the age of 18 and worked in several jobs before devoting himself entirely to writing. After reading James M. Cain's novel The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934) he decided to try his own hand as a mystery writer. He had read about the American gangster Ma Barker and her sons, and with the help of maps and a slang dictionary, he composed in six weeks No Orchids for Miss Blandish. During World War II he served as a pilot in the RAF, ultimately achieving the rank of Squadron Leader. From this period dates Chase's unusual short story ‘The Mirror in Room 22’, in which he tried his hand outside the crime genre. In was set in an old house, occupied by officers of a squadron. The owner of the house had committed suicide in his bedroom and the last two occupants of the room have been found with a razor in their hands and their throats cut. The wing commander tells that when he started to shave before the mirror, he found another face in it. The apparition drew the razor across his throat. ‘The wing commander nodded. ‘I use a safety razor’, he said. ‘Otherwise I might have met with a serious accident - especially if I used an old-fashioned cut-throat’. The story was published under the author's real name in the anthology Slipstream in 1946.

 

Chase published some 80 books. A number of his books, such as I'll Get You For This (1946) and Young Girls Beware (1959) were attacked for their violence. Although many of his stories are located in the US, he paid there only two brief visits, one to Miami and one to New Orleans. Most of the author's knowledge of America was derived from encyclopedias, detailed maps, and slang dictionaries. Chase's series characters include a corrupt ex-commando Brick-Top Corrigan, Vic Malloy, a Californian private eye, a former CIA agent Mark Girland, millionaire playboy Don Miclem, and Helga Rolfe. Vic Malloy appeared in You're Lonely When You're Dead (1949) and Figure It Out For Youirself (1950), and Mark Girland in This Is For Real (1965) and You Have Yourself a Deal (1966). Corrigan stories were written under the name Raymond Marshall, among others Mallory(1950) and Why Pick On Me? (1951). Don Miclem had his adventures in European setting in Mission to Venice (1954) and Mission to Siena (1955).

 

In several Chase's stories the protagonist tries to find his place in the sun by committing a crime - an insurance fraud or a theft. But the scheme fails and leads to a murder and finally to cul-de-sac, in which the hero realizes that he never had a chance to keep out of trouble. Women are often beautiful, clever, and treacherous, who kill unhesitating if they have to cover a crime.

 

In There's Always a Price Tag (1956) the author turns inside out the old plot, in which a man commits murder and then attempts to make his crime appear to be a suicide. In the story the protagonist attempts to make a suicide appear to be murder in order to lay his hands on the victim's insurance money. But there is no escape in Chase's world: ‘I looked out of the car window at the traffic, the people moving on the sidewalks, the shop windows and the blue of the sky. It seemed to me that it was imperative to store up in my mind the sight of these familiar things. I had a feeling I wouldn’t see them again’.

 

In Tell It To The Birds (1963) Anson, a gambler and an energetic insurance salesman, knows that he has never been able to hold onto money but still thinks of a robbery: This is it, he thought. There is a time when every man worth a nicke must make up his mind what to do with his life. I’ve put off my decision long enough. I’ll never get anywhere without money. With Meg to help me and with fifty thousand dollars to get me started, I’ll reach up and take the sun out of the sky.

 

Bibliography

 

No Orchids For Miss Blandish (1939)

The Dead Stay Dumb (1939)

Twelve Chinks and A Woman (1940)

Get A Load of This (1941)

Miss Callaghan Comes To Grief (1941)

Miss Shumway Waves A Wand (1944)

Eve (1945)

I'll Get You For This (1946)

The Flesh of the Orchid (1948)

You Never Know With Women (1949)

The Flesh of the Orchid (1948)

You're Lonely When You're Dead (1949)

Figure It Out For Yourself (1950) aka the Marijuana Mob

Lay Her Among the Lilies (1950) aka Too Dangerous To Be Free

Strictly For Cash (1951)

The Fast Buck (1952)

The Double Shuffle (1952)

This Way For A Shroud (1953)

I'll Bury My Dead (1953)

Tiger by the Tail (1954)

Safer Dead (1954) aka Dead Ringer

You've Got It Coming (1955)

There's Always A Price Tag (1956)

The Guilty Are Afraid (1957)

Not Safe To Be Free (1958) aka the Case of the Strangled Starlet

Shock Treatment (1959)

The World in My Pocket (1959)

What's Better Than Money (1960)

Come Easy Go Easy (1960)

Just Another Sucker (1961)

A Lotus For Miss Quon (1961)

I Would Rather Stay Poor (1962)

A Coffin From Hongkong (1962)

Tell It To the Birds (1963)

On Bright Summer Morning (1963)

The Soft Centre (1964)

The Way the Cookie Crumbles (1965)

This is For Real (1967)

Cade (1966)

You Have Yourself A Deal (1966)

Well Now, My Pretty (1967)

Have This One on Me (1967)

An Ear To the Ground (1968)

Believed Violent (1968)

The Vulture is A Patient Bird (1969)

The Whiff of Money (1969)

There's A Hippie on the Highway (1970)

Like A Hole in the Head (1970)

Want To Stay Alive? (1971)

An Ace Up My Sleeve (1971)

Just A Matter of Time (1972)

You're Dead Without Money (1972)

Knock, Knock! Who's There (1973)

Have A Change of Scene (1973)

Three of Spades (1974)

So What Happens To Me? (1974)

Goldfish Have No Hiding Place (1974)

The Joker in the Pack (1975)

Believe This, You'll Believe Anything (1975)

Do Me A Favour Drop Dead (1976)

I Hold the Four Aces (1977)

My Laugh Comes Last (1977)

Meet Mark Girland (1977)

Consider Yourself Dead (1978)

A Can of Worms (1979)

You Must Be Kidding (1979)

You Can Say That Again (1980)

Try This One For Size (1980)

Hand Me A Fig Leaf (1981)

Have A Nice Night (1982)

We'll Share A Double Funeral (1982)

Not My Thing (1983)

Hit Them Where It Hurts (1984)

Meet Helga Rolfe (1984)

As Ambrose Grant

More Deadly Than the Male (1946)

As James L Docherty

He Won't Need It Now (1939)

As Raymond Marshall

Lady Here's Your Wreath (1940)

Just the Way It is (1944) [apa Blonde's Requiem] (1946)

Make the Corpse Walk (1946)

No Business of Mine (1947)

Trusted Like A Fox (1948)

The Paw in the Bottle (1949)

Mallory (1950)

In A Vain Shadow (1951)

But A Short Time To Live (1951)

Why Pick on Me? (1951)

The Wary Transgressor (1952)

The Things Men Do (1953)

Mission To Venice (1954)

The Sucker Punch (1954)

Mission To Siena (1955)

The Pickup (1955)

Ruthless (1955)

You Find Him I'll Fix Him (1956)

Never Trust A Woman (1957)

Hit and Run (1958)

 

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