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Davis, Frederick C

Page history last edited by Jon 12 years ago

 

Frederick Clyde Davis (1902-1977) was an American pulp writer. He was educated at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, and became a professional writer at the age of 22. Davis wrote several novels featuring his series detective, Professor Cy Hatch. He also wrote as Murdo Coombs, Stephen Ransome and Curtis Steele. Books under his own name were published in the UK as by Stephen Ransome. Other series characters were Schyler Cole and Luke Speare.

 

Mike Grost on Frederick C Davis

 

Frederick C. Davis was a prolific pulp writer. Two of his best known series today deal with young men who have dual identities, and all the trouble they get into over this. One series deals with a police officer who doubles as, the rob from the rich and give to the poor, Moon Man. And the Bill Brent stories deal with a young newspaperman who writes an advice to the lovelorn column under a female pseudonym. The Moon Man tales are well written stories of a noble thief and his struggles to preserve his secret identity. They remind me to a great degree of the comic book heroes of the 1960's and their own struggles with their secret identity. Although the Moon Man has no super powers, nor even lots of high tech gadgets à la Batman, he is costumed, including a cape, no less. The Moon Man also seems much closer in tone to the superheroes of the comic books than are other pulp heroes of the thirties, such as the Shadow or Doc Savage, even though both of these characters are often cited as ancestors of Superman, Batman and the rest. In his everyday identity as a 25 year old police Sergeant, the Moon Man is just an ordinary young man, without much in the way of resources or allies. He has a relatively realistic life, too, with colleagues, a fiancee, and a family. All of these characters play a major role in the series. The Shadow, by contrast, is a millionaire with a vast team of assistants, no regular job or personal contacts outside of his team, and a very vague personal life. He lives at the center of a vast crime fighting apparatus, one dedicated to terrorizing the entire underworld. The Moon Man's personal life seems much closer to Clark Kent's than does The Shadow's. The Moon Man's fiancee Sue McEwen is also a young woman eager to be a detective, and a full fledged amateur female sleuth in the Nancy Drew - Amelia Butterworth tradition. Her character reminds one a lot of Lois Lane, who was also a gutsy young woman always trying to unravel mysteries. She is fascinated by the Moon Man, and already in the first story she is trying to figure out who lies behind his mask. Shades of Lois Lane!

 

Davis hardly invented the hero with a secret identity; Baroness Orczy's Scarlet Pimpernel is often cited as the first, with Johnston McCulley's Zorro another important pre-pulp precursor. Orczy emphasized ingenious plots to preserve her hero's secret identity; this feature is also central to Davis. Above all, Davis' work seems modeled on Frank L. Packard's tales of Jimmie Dale, also known as The Gray Seal. (A bit of trivia: the one way glass known as Argus glass used by the Moon Man for his helmet echoes the name of the newspaper in the Jimmie Dale series, The Morning News-Argus.) Davis preserves the anti-authoritarian aspect of his hero's activities, established by these writers, as well. But Davis' work does set the hero among a relatively normal, modern setting, and with well detailed personal life.

 

The one Bill Brent tale I have been able to read is very different; it is a complexly plotted piece in full pulp style. This excellent story startles a reader familiar only with the Moon Man tales, because 1) it is a genuine mystery story, unlike the more adventure oriented Moon Man tales; and 2) it is much closer to the sort of mysteries being written in the same era by Lawrence Blochman, Nebel, Constiner and other exponents of the tale of "Mystery and Adventure". The scenes in the newspaper office at night even recall similar scenes in Blochman's novel Bengal Fire (1937). It does have the same wholesome atmosphere as Davis' other work - it is definitely not hard-boiled - and it does share Davis' idealistic concerns about helping other people.

 

"Where There's a Will, There's a Slay" was recently published in Maxim Jakubowski's anthology, The Mammoth Book of Pulp Action (2001); its source was a 1953 pulp. However, the story clearly takes place near the end of World War II in 1945, and the 1953 appearance is probably a reprint from an earlier source. It is likely that it is the same story as "Where There's a Will" (1945), which appeared in Dime Detective (Volume 47, #3, February 1945). In any case, it is a lively novella with a complex plot. The story is a pure murder mystery, and one without series detectives. The tale is not quite fair play: Davis keeps introducing new plot ideas, that are not logically predictable from earlier clues. Still, it is inventive. The story shares features with other Davis mysteries. 1) Davis gradually builds up a complex and surprising set of relationships among his large cast of suspects. Many of them turn out to have family ties to each other. This is in addition to their business relationships. This makes their interactions complex, and often over-determined: someone will have both business and a family relationship. This recalls the Moon Man tales, where the hero is both on the police force with the other characters, and a member of the same family. Such a plot construction gives Davis' stories a unique, highly personal feel. 2) Also in Davis tradition: the complex, ambiguous relations of the police to each other, and to society. Here we are in a crooked town, one ruled by municipal corruption. One never knows which side of the law any policeman is on, or how they relate to each other. This recalls the hero of the Moon Man tales - in his secret identity he is a policeman, one who works both with and against the other police. These police relationships are added to the complex pattern of business and family relationships in the rest of the story. 3) The story also features the complex but pleasant relations between the hero and heroine seen in the Moon Man tales. Oftentimes, one or more member of the pair is up to secretive, mysterious activities, thus complicating the relationship. 4) The nocturnal atmosphere also recalls the Bill Brent tale, "You Slay Me, Baby" (1942). Davis likes to set his works in business offices of the characters, nearly deserted at night. Sinister people are often prowling around these lonely offices, menacing the hero and his friends, who are working late.

 

Bibliography

 

Coffins for Three (1938) aka One Murder Too Many

He Wouldn’t Stay Dead (1939)

Poor Poor Yorick (1939) aka Murder Doesn't Always Out

The Graveyard Never Closes (1940)

Deep Lay the Dead (1942)

Let the Skeletons Rattle (1944)

Detour to Oblivion l947

Thursday's Blade (1947)

Gone Tomorrow (1948)

The Deadly Miss Ashley (1950)

Lilies in Her Garden Grew (1951)

Tread Lightly Angel (1952)

Drag the Dark (1953)

Another Morgue Heard From (1954) aka Deadly Bedfellows

Night Drop (1955)

High Heel Homicide (1961)

As Stephen Ransome

Death Checks In (1939) aka Whose Corpse?

A Shroud for Shylock (1939)

Hearses Don't Hurry (1941)

False Bounty (1948) aka I, The Executioner

Hear No Evil (1953)

The Shroud Off Her Back (1953)

The Frazier Acquittal (1955)

The Men in Her Death (1956)

So Deadly My Love (1957)

I’ll Die for You (1959)

[The Unspeakable 960

Warning Bell (1960)

Some Must Watch (1961)

Without a Trace (1962)

The Night The Woman (1963)

Meet in Darkness (1964)

One Man Jury (1964)

Alias His Wife (1965)

The Sin File (1965)

The Hidden Hour (1966)

Trap No 6 (1971)

Crucibles of the Damned (1976)

Calling Car 13 (1977)

As Murdo Coombs

A Moment of Need (1947)

 

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