Wednesday, November 15, 2017

It's Joe Doyle, Not That Conan Guy

"Not According to Doyle."
By Carter Critz (house pseudonym).
First appearance: Popular Detective, November 1947.
Short short story (7 pages).
Online at Archive.org (HERE).

"When a bodyguard’s wished on him and a blonde lovely asks him to tackle a mystery, this snooper has his hands full!"
Fifty grand missing from a bank, a wise guy wanting to hire himself out to protect the detective, two plug-uglies willing to do a little kidnapping, a dishy tomato looking for 
her missing brother—just another day in the life for this P.I.  . . .

Comment: Our detective has a distinctive voice . . .

  "DOYLE is the name, Joe Doyle. I’m a private detective so I spend my time minding other people’s business. Not that I’m too nosy—I only get curious when I’m hired to do some snooping. Remember the case of the Singing Parrot, and the one about the Headless Taxi Driver? Well, I didn’t solve 
either of those. I only read about them in the newspapers—but I get along all right. I live in a hotel on a side street in the Forties and, as hotels go, a tramp steamer couldn’t take this one far enough away to suit me. But be it ever my grumble, it's still my home."

Regrettably, though, the story doesn't measure up.


Resource:
- According to FictionMags, the "Carter Critz" alias was used at least two dozen times in Thrilling Detective, Popular Detective, and the like from 1931 to 1953, the one exception

being in Popular Sports Magazine.

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