Mon 3 Oct 2011
Characters from DFW #7: TUG NORTON — by Monte Herridge.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Columns , Pulp Fiction[21] Comments
DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY
by MONTE HERRIDGE
#7. TUG NORTON, by Edward Parrish Ware.
Tug Norton is a private detective and creation of prolific author Edward Parrish Ware (1884-1967?). These stories are told first hand by Tug Norton:
Norton notes that when business is dull, he entertains and instructs himself by studying his casebook (The Devil Winks). This is how some of the Norton stories begin, with him reliving the case he has looked up in his files.
Tug Norton is a former cowboy and policeman. He formerly served in the police department in Kansas City, but lost his position there when new police commissioners came into office and fired “all those politically off-colored,†including him. (Lost Lake)
His past as a cowboy is brought out in the story “The Sow’s Earâ€, in which Lafe Spear, a friend of his from Oklahoma, shows up at the agency to hire him. Lafe Spear and Norton had worked together as cowboys some twelve years previously. This story is written as a contemporary Western: horses are used, and the principals dress as cowboys (including Tug Norton). The setting is rural Oklahoma.
The Kaw Valley Detective Bureau is based in Kansas City, Missouri, but the cases are also spread out in numerous other locations. Norton states in one story that he was not interested in out-of-town cases, and that he was “confining my practice—what there is of it—to the city.†(The Tomahawk)
However, contrary to this declaration, Norton does take cases outside Kansas City. In the Norton series there are some stories in an urban setting, but the series is a wide-ranging one and has quite a few stories in rural settings. For example, one story, “The Silent Partnerâ€, begins in Kansas City but most of the action takes place in the wilds of Arkansas.
“Empty Pouches†takes place in Arkansas, “The Trackless Trail†and “The Tomahawk†cases are in Kansas, “The Queen’s Patteran†in and around Joplin, Missouri, and so forth for many other cases. “The Devil Winks†is mostly in Kansas City, but the climax and finish take place in rural Arkansas.
In “A Dead Man in the Cast,†Norton discusses an early case in his career, before he had any assistants. At that time the agency consisted of just himself and his secretary-receptionist Mary Malloy. The offices at that time were in suite 606 (sixth floor), Gateway Building.
Norton never used the front entrance to his offices, instead using as the entrance another door along the hall that showed the words: Andrew Harper, Stocks & Bonds, Private. This suite masked an entrance to his real offices next door.
In another early story from his career as a private detective, “The Wheels Turn,†shows a client hiring him at his hotel. Norton mentions that a year after this case his offices were in the Sandstone Building. In his early cases Norton seems to have been aided by having cases referred to him by Chief Enger, his former boss at the Kansas City Police Department.
He does use other operatives in his work, and they show up in the stories from time to time. As of the early 1927 stories, Jim Steel was his chief assistant, and worked with him on “The Queen’s Patteran†case among others. Other unnamed detective operatives also show up in stories such as “When Fate Wants a Man.â€
Norton has an office boy named Spec, who announces visitors and would-be clients. Spec is noted as being “something of a mimic.†(A Game With Death) No doubt he is also a detective in training.
Norton on occasion is called in to help various law enforcement officials in Missouri. The story “A Game With Death†features one of those cases. A sheriff named Hap Craker calls on Tug Norton in his Kansas City office and asks for help against a gang of criminals infesting his county.
In another case, Sheriff Sam Sneed from Arkansas, an old acquaintance of Norton’s, comes to him for help in solving a series of robberies and murders. (Empty Pouches) In a third case, Sheriff Rube Wallace of Cold Springs County called for Norton’s assistance in a multiple arson and murder case. So it appears that Tug Norton had gained a good reputation for solving difficult cases.
The Kaw Valley Detective Bureau is also on retainer with various clients, or in other words paid at regular intervals in case their services are needed. “The Dumb Spot†is an example where one of these clients calls them in to help solve a bank robbery and murder.
The agency has connections with other detective agencies around the country, and they could call in for help on a case if necessary. This is the case in “Dynamite and Six-Guns,†where a friend from a Chicago detective agency has a case that is taking him to Kansas City. He calls Norton and asks for his agency’s assistance in the matter. It turns out to be an exceedingly violent case for Norton, but he wins a big fee.
Some of his cases are just downright offbeat and strange. The first is “The Seven Coffins”, a story late in the series. Norton’s agency is hired to guard six empty coffins in a deceased millionaire’s mansion, but the mystery of the seventh coffin causes murder. The mortician and his assistant are involved, and one scene takes place at the funeral home.
In another case, “The Tomahawk,†a rich man has suddenly become a hermit in his own mansion, and Norton has to find out why. In this case, an old Gypsy curse from a nearby tribe is the reason for the man’s behavior.
Even though there is plenty of violence in the series, with numerous gunfights, Norton is not a big believer in using guns to solve every problem. In the story “Hell’s Backyard,†he puts forth his philosophy upon the use of guns. He says that any sleuth, either police or private detective, who is overly fond of using guns to solve problems is asking for trouble. He either gets shot or fired for using his gun.
I assert that this business of detecting crime and tracing criminals is better done with the head than the gun—and I invite proof to the contrary. (Hell’s Backyard)
This attitude is interesting for that time, considering that the pulps are filled with violence, and gunfights are common in this series. In fact, Ware’s own Ranger Calhoun series are probably some of the most violent in the magazine, and rarely does a story end without the criminal being shot. However, even this series couldn’t compete with Judson Philips’ series about the Park Avenue Hunt Club when it comes to violence.
Norton is a bit of a philosopher, and begins many of the stories with some of his philosophy (based on experience and observation). Here is an example:
Norton’s idea of a vacation from work is to go fishing. In “Trouble Up the Stream,†he and his assistant Jim Steel go on a week-long fishing trip. However, as expected, they run into trouble and have to solve a murder.
This series was begun during the formative period of the hard-boiled private detective type of story, but still uses features of the more formal detective story, such as the use of logic and deduction to solve crimes. It does have some features of the hard-boiled story; the stories are still very violent in the private detective way, with the conclusion often resolved with gunshots.
Tug Norton is definitely a tough, hard-boiled detective with plenty of experience, and his speech and behavior show this. He doesn’t act like the stereotypical lone wolf private detective. He is more of a descendant of the older detective characters of the dime novels type. Many, but not all, of the new private detective stories are primarily urban in setting.
Ware had many stories published in Flynn’s/Detective Fiction Weekly in the 1920s-1930s. The Tug Norton series numbered 40 stories from 1926-1934, including two in Dime Detective. The Ranger Jack Calhoun series, also by Ware, numbered at least 59 stories from 1926-1936.
A third series by Ware was the Buck Harris series of 12 stories 1930-1934. Battle McKim was another series by Ware, counting 12 stories 1934-1935. Ware’s character Sheriff Bob Stratton appeared in 2 stories in 1929.
So Ware was very busy writing for this one pulp title. His Calhoun stories seemed to be the most popular, and the character appeared on the magazine’s cover a number of times. Tug Norton, although seemingly not as popular, was in my opinion the better written series.
The Tug Norton series by Edward Parrish Ware:
From Detective Fiction Weekly:
The Tree-Top Trail January 30, 1926
The Fifth Gate March 13, 1926
The Queen’s Patteran January 1, 1927
Hell’s Backyard March 26, 1927
The Silent Partner April 2, 1927
Lost Lake May 14, 1927
The Hole in the Hill October 1, 1927
Empty Pouches December 3, 1927
The Tomahawk February 18, 1928
The Devil’s Pocket February 25, 1928
The Devil Winks March 3, 1928
Hitched to the Wind April 14, 1928
The Wheels Turn April 28, 1928
When Fate Wants a Man October 20, 1928
When Thief Catches Thief December 1, 1928
Signed With Lead December 15, 1928
The Death Stone November 2, 1929
The Trackless Trail November 30, 1929
The Locomotive Mystery February 22, 1930
Hot Eyes July 5, 1930
A Game With Death May 24, 1930
The Sow’s Ear October 18, 1930
Prison Shoes November 22, 1930
The Jade Boomerang December 6, 1930
Snow Camp December 13, 1930
A Background of Vendetta April 11, 1931
Consider the Sphinx October 24, 1931
Trouble Up the Stream November 28, 1931
The Yellow Demon July 16, 1932
The Devil’s Do-All July 23, 1932
The Pole-Axe Problem October 1, 1932
Behind the Green Mask November 12, 1932
Monkey Blood February 25, 1933
Red Skies May 27, 1933
A Dead Man in the Cast August 12, 1933
Dynamite and Six-Guns January 20, 1934
The Seven Coffins February 17, 1934
The Dumb Spot June 9, 1934
From Dime Detective Magazine:
The Skull of Judgment March, 1932
The Gallows Clue July 15, 1933
Previously in this series:
1. SHAMUS MAGUIRE, by Stanley Day.
2. HAPPY McGONIGLE, by Paul Allenby.
3. ARTY BEELE, by Ruth & Alexander Wilson.
4. COLIN HAIG, by H. Bedford-Jones.
5. SECRET AGENT GEORGE DEVRITE, by Tom Curry.
6. BATTLE McKIM, by Edward Parrish Ware.
October 3rd, 2011 at 10:52 pm
Another interesting piece on the DFW series characters. It’s really amazing the amount of fiction the weekly pulps required. Every week for decades pulps like DFW, ARGOSY, WESTERN STORY, DETECTIVE STORY, LOVE STORY, etc churned out a massive number of stories each week for the fiction hungry consumers.
Where did these weekly fiction consumers for the short story go? TV captured many of them in the 1950’s and 1960’s with the series comedies, westerns, detective shows, dramas, etc.
Now, our constant hunger for the latest electronic gadget seems to be capturing the attention of younger readers. People even want to read on these things instead of books.
The newstands used to groan under the weight of the fiction pulps and slicks. Now these great old magazines are not even memories except for collectors like Monte, who remind us that once upon a time, there was a big audience in American that liked to read short fiction for entertainment.
Those days are gone forever. Now we have 5 digest fiction magazines left. There used to be more titles than you could name. Here are the fiction magazines left:
THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SF.
ASIMOV’S SF
ANALOG SF
ELLERY QUEEN MYSTERY MAGAZINE
ALFRED HITCHCOCK MYSTERY MAGAZINE
There are a few others like WEIRD TALES and some literary quarterlies, but their circulation is so small that the end must be near. But all is not lost; DFW and some of the other weeklies can still be collected for low prices. You can buy alot of good reading for 10 or 20 dollars. DFW alone, lasted over 900 issues.
October 3rd, 2011 at 11:46 pm
You answered your own question in paragraph two, Walker. All those readers went to TV. Radio didn’t make much of an inroad, but the printed page just couldn’t compete with the boob tube.
But getting back to your first paragraph, don’t forget the slicks. The Saturday Evening Post and Collier’s were also weekly, and monthly magazines like Liberty and The American were chock fill of serials and short stories as well. It was a lot of wordage, a lot of it forgettable, but still a mind-boggling realization, once you think about it.
I’ve read a lot of the detective pulps, including DFW, but when you don’t read a magazine week after week, only scattered issues here and there, you don’t realize how many characters were there whose adventures readers followed avidly and demanded more in the letter columns. I know I’ve read stories by Edward Parrish Ware, and more than likely more than one Tug Norton tale. But recognize as being the hero of so many stories? Not until Monte sent me this column, I didn’t.
October 3rd, 2011 at 11:57 pm
Monte has just informed me that it was Phil Stephensen-Payne who alerted him to the two stories in DIME DETECTIVE years after an earlier version of this article.
Phil, if you happen to read this, I am embarrassed to say that I owe you a big apology. Over the weekend I discovered a long email you sent me last June that I never replied to.
This was back when I was still recovering from my hip injury and everything got backed up, but why a whole week’s worth of emails was never read by me, I cannot explain.
I’ll reply tomorrow. Apologies.
October 4th, 2011 at 12:25 am
Yes, I agree with the enormous fiction content of the weekly slicks back during the 1920’s, 1930’s and 1940’s. I mentioned the slicks above. In fact I used to have an almost complete collection of the Saturday Evening Post from 1900 into the 1960’s. Over 3,000 large slick issues that almost broke the backs of the movers when I moved into a larger house. I still have many of them but they are just too heavy and take up too much room.
October 4th, 2011 at 1:03 am
Hopefully, this comment won’t derail discussion from Monty’s fine review. Please feel free to ignore all but the last paragraph.
E-books have saved the dying short story. Kindle singles is one of the hottest selling types of e-books. Today’s writers are returning to the form because there is a market for them again.
Tonight, I bought two Operator 5 e-books for 99cents each. Some of the Perry Mason books just went this new fangled gosh durn format. I got “The Case of the Vagabond Virgin” for $5.99.
The future for the forgotten writer of that era is brighter because of e-books.
Guys, I am and have been a collector of a variety of things including newspaper comic strip book collections. I understand collectors have a special relationship with the object they collect. I have nothing against print. E-books are not the enemy. Readers are the ones abandoning print. The evil empire Amazon sells print books too. It is in its best interest to support as many formats people want to buy.
BTW, Ware is available in print over at the evil empire but not in e-book.
Monty, I enjoyed your review. I grew up a few miles from Joplin. My late father was born in Pittsburg Kansas in 1927. I hope to be able to read “Queen’s Patteran” someday.
October 4th, 2011 at 8:04 am
Very nice review, Monte! Seventy years after some of this stuff was last published, we are still discovering information about them. I will be releasing new information in my two upcoming research books from Altus Press in the next few weeks: G-Man Companion and Black Bat Companion. Us old pulp fans are not finished yet!
October 4th, 2011 at 8:41 am
Michael in Comment #5 says “E-books have saved the dying short story”.
No offense, but I disagree completely. When I talk with my neighbors, relatives, non-collecting friends, I can not discuss fiction or literature with them because they simply do not read it.
They do not read it in the fiction digests, which are practically impossible to find, and they do not read fiction online or on e-readers either.
But they do have one thing in common that they all do, and that is they watch TV, usually for several hours each night. TV has taken the place of reading and I’m not talking about quality TV either. Most people watch situation comedies, reality shows, Dancing with the Stars, mediocre dramas, etc. There are some good shows, mostly on cable.
But it’s just not TV that distracts possible readers. When I refer to electronic gadgets, I’m not really talking about Kindles. Many people spend an enormous amount of time tweeting, texting, studying Facebook, and fooling around with games and other things on the so-called “smart phones”, etc. I’ve had the misfortune of noticing many times that my friends are addicted to these things and cannot even pay attention to a movie, never mind a book.
But I’m in the minority with our automated and shallow society. So I’ll go back to the stack of literary magazines and pulps that I’ve been reading. It’s ironic but one of the best, TRIQUARTERLY, recently ceased their print edition and now can be read only online…
October 4th, 2011 at 9:27 am
Walker,
I think your last sentence, while sadly true, only reinforces Michael’s contention that e-books and online fiction sites are making it profitable for many writers to keep writing short stories, or to make some pocket money for their older stuff.
I have no way of knowing how much in the way of pocket change, but it has to be better than nothing.
True enough that most people don’t read for pleasure, but if ebooks only increase the percentage who do from 1% to 2%, I’m all for them.
October 4th, 2011 at 11:13 am
A thought.
Today many people are obsessed with “hits”. They only want to watch hit movies and TV, and if they do read, they read only big sellers. This seems to be part of the “winner take all” phenomenon in modern culture.
DFW probably never had a giant circulation. BLACK MASK reportedly rarely got above 100, 000 readers. But loyal readers stuck to it. They didn’t care if they weren’t reading Best Sellers. And the publisher thought it was worthwhile to cater to a niche market.
If there were pulps today, there would only be one pulp magazine, with 40 million readers.
Back in the old days, 360 mystery pulp magazine titles alone!
This “winner take all” mentality was in place long before e-books or the Internet. Maybe it is a big part of the problem.
The other weird modern attitude: Short stories are bad – only novels are good. And long series of novels are best! How did this start? I really like short stories.
October 4th, 2011 at 11:19 am
PS
It’s easy and cheap to subscribe to
ELLERY QUEEN MYSTERY MAGAZINE
ALFRED HITCHCOCK MYSTERY MAGAZINE
Just go to their website and order:
http://www.themysteryplace.com/order/
Then the magazines come every month in the mail.
They cost around $2.50 per issue for US residents.
I’ve subscribed since 2003.
October 4th, 2011 at 11:32 am
Mike, I wonder how much today’s World market vs yesterday’s Regional market is the cause of what you are saying.
Look at how baseball has changed. Before the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in the fifties, St. Louis was the most Western team. Pacific Coast League served the West while the American and National leagues served the East. TV’s regional ratings were more important, as I suspect regional sales for magazines.
Question for the experts here. What kind of distribution did BLACK MASK, DFW, and others have? I know they were easily available in the Eastern cities, but did they sell on the West Coast or in rural Middle America?
October 4th, 2011 at 11:33 am
Mike Grost in Comment #9 points out a change in reading habits. There used to be over a hundred pulp and slick magazines devoted to short stories. Even during the digest revolution of the 1950’s, short fiction was very popular.
Not any longer. For many years publishers have been reluctant to print short fiction collections because they just didn’t sell. The only magazines publishing short stories now are a few literary magazines and the 5 remaining digests.
The E-book revolution taking place is mainly about non-fiction and novels. I doubt if the market for short fiction is very valid and I certainly do not think any significant amount of money is being paid to the mainly unknown writers that are trying short fiction.
By the way, when TRIQUARTERLY went electronic last year, it went from being a highly respected literary magazine with a salaried staff of editors, to an online magazine with a student staff. Needless to say it is no longer considered a high quality magazine.
October 4th, 2011 at 11:39 am
In answer Michael’s question in Comment #11 about pulp distribution, yes the pulps, including DFW and BLACK MASK, were distributed all over the country. In fact many collections of pulps were turned up in the mid-west because the rural areas saw them as legitimate books and tended to save them. The city dwellers saw them all over on newstands and were more willing to throw them away after reading.
October 4th, 2011 at 2:40 pm
Thanks, Walker for the answer in #13. Did the publishing houses have regional printers or did some areas of the country get their pulps and magazines later than others.
Walker, in 12, for someone who is trying hard to avoid e-books you seem to have strong beliefs about what is selling and what isn’t. Kindle singles were popular in the beginning with reprinting news articles, but today the fiction singles (short story) are very popular, with many of today’s mystery writers publishing e-book short stories.
I really need to shut up about the subject and ask more interesting questions such as did Ware write anything beyond the pulps?
October 4th, 2011 at 4:04 pm
I also do not own a Kindle, but whenever I’m reading mystery-oriented blogs, especially those written by authors themselves, I have been struck by how many short stories and out-of-print novels are available now as an ebook. (Some are even tempting.) They must be selling, or it must be super easy to produce them in digital form, in which case any income, no matter how small, is essentially profit. Why else does it seem that everyone’s doing it?
As for Edward Parrish Ware, the answer’s no, as far as I’ve been able to discover. No full-length books, mystery or otherwise.
October 4th, 2011 at 6:25 pm
It is reportedly both very easy and very inexpensive to self-publish in e-book or Kindle format.
It is also easy to move from Kindle format to trade paperback.
October 4th, 2011 at 6:32 pm
Blessed be POD.
October 5th, 2011 at 12:19 pm
Why no “Daffy Dill”; “Satan Hall”, or T.T. Flynn’s, “Mike Harris” articles? Flynn was a top pulpster.
Sale and Daly were good journeymen. Then there were fine pulpsters like Gardner and Bedford-Jones, who had series in DFW.
October 5th, 2011 at 2:43 pm
There are plenty of good series in DFW, and I will being getting to them all in time. One Bedford-Jones article is already up, and I have another one done. Erle Stanley Gardner articles have already been written and will be posted in the future. Two of Richard Sales’s series have been written up. So far, a total of 24 articles of varying lengths have been done, and they will all appear here.
October 5th, 2011 at 3:04 pm
All in good time then, Tascosa. Thanks for asking, and thank you, Monte, for the update and preview of things to come!
November 9th, 2011 at 8:25 pm
[…] 5. SECRET AGENT GEORGE DEVRITE, by Tom Curry. 6. BATTLE McKIM, by Edward Parrish Ware. 7. TUG NORTON by Paul Allenby. […]