| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

Walsh, Thomas

Page history last edited by Luca Conti 15 years, 3 months ago

Thomas Francis Morgan Walsh (19 September 1908-21 October 1984) was an American writer. He was educated at Columbia University New York and worked as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun. His writing career began with many short stories for EQMM and other magazines before he attempted his first novel in 1950.

 

 

Mike Grost on Thomas Walsh

 

Thomas Walsh was an author of suspense stories contemporaneous with Cornell Woolrich, but much less remembered today. Walsh's work seems not so much to be influenced by Woolrich, as to form a parallel tradition. Abduction and people held captive are repeated elements in his tales. Several stories concern threats to marital love, with a husband forcibly separated from his wife. His stories tend to involve the police prominently; the cops are usually honest and treated sympathetically. "Danger in the Shadows" (1941) is sensitive and emotionally involving. His use of the male in jeopardy and the female who tracks him down here is unusual, although it has analogues in the Woolrich series of female protagonist stories that began with "Face Work" (1937). Woolrich's women are usually trying to free an unjustly convicted relative, however, whereas here the husband is in actual physical danger. Walsh's career began in pulp magazines, such as Black Mask, in the early 1930's, and progressed to the slicks, in the later 1930's. He turned to novels in 1950, and also published late short stories in EQMM. "Dangerous Bluff" (1960) has characters which fall into Walsh's familiar categories of tough male cop and gutsy woman civilian. Both are typically Everyman like, ordinary people. However, it shows his lighter side, in a tale with as much romance and even comedy as crime.

"The Stillness at 3:25" (1979) is a genuine detective story, complete with a puzzle plot. Like many of Walsh's later works, it centers on police heroes, here, a retired cop. It takes place in a resort area in upstate New York, a type of locale Walsh sometimes employed.

"A Hell of a Cop" (1979) recreates the style of 1930's pulp police adventures. It even shows elevators in New York as being manned by operators, surely an anachronism by 1979. It is a detective story - its police detective hero works to solve a mysterious murder - but it is hardly a fair play, puzzle plot mystery story.

 

Bibliography

 

Nightmare in Manhattan (1950)

The Night Watch (1952)

The Dark Window (1956)

Dangerous Passenger (1959)

The Eye of the Needle (1961)

A Thief in the Night (1962)

To Hide A Rogue (1964)

The Tenth Point (1965)

The Resurrection Man (1966)

The Face of the Enemy (1966)

The Action of the Tiger (1968)

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.