Carl Buchanan has come up before on this blog, in particular in this post made last January. At the time it had just been discovered that “Carl Buchanan” was the pen name of James Robert Peery, a fact which produced a flurry of activity, including a list of the stories he’d done for the detective pulp magazines.

   I won’t reproduce the list of his short fiction here — you can follow the link above for that — but here now is the revised entry for Buchanan as it presently exists in Part 9 of the online Addenda for the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin:

BUCHANAN, CARL. Pseudonym of James Robert Peery, 1900-1954, q.v. Born in Mississippi; served in U.S. Army’s Signal and Intelligence Divisions in WWI; worked in banking and cotton before settling into journalism; published two mainstream novels under his real name. Under this pen name, the author of a number of short stories for the US detective pulp magazines and three crime novels published in the UK, included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      The Black Cloak Murders. Pearson, UK, hc, 1936. Setting: North Carolina.

      Night of Horror. Mellifont, UK, pb, 1939.
      The Red Scorpion. Mellifont, UK, pb, 1939.

[UPDATE] A week or so ago, I received an email from Suzanne Peery Schutt, who has agreed to allow me to share it with you. She says:

    “My sister-in-law sent me your web site, and I just wanted you to know that I am the daughter of James (Jim) Peery. He was a brilliant man who died at age 54. His two novels are Stark Summer, 1939, and God Rides A Gale, 1940. These were the war years and it was difficult making a living as a writer, so he moved to Jackson from Eupora, working as news editor of radio station WJDX and was Mississippi correspondent for United Press.

    “He died of a thrombosis way too soon, at age 54. I was a junior in college. I cherish my memories: I never had to look up a word in the dictionary as he knew them all. I have no copies of the pulp magazine stories; I was just a child but remember him at the typewriter in the parlor of the family home in Eupora. It was built in 1908 and is still standing despite damage from Katrina. The family who owns it now has renovated it and I go back at least 3 times a year to see it and remember my wonderful heritage.

    “Daddy was married to his childhood sweetheart, Sudie Leigh, and my mother. Mother was a school teacher and superintendent of education for Webster County. For a time, she supported the family so that Daddy could write his two novels.

    “I live in Clinton, am married to Wallis Schutt, an engineer, and we have three grown children. I am an avid reader and quilt maker.”

            Best regards,

              Suzanne Peery Schutt

[UPDATE #2] 12-11-07. In the interest in keeping this entry on Mr. Peery complete, here are the combined listings of his pulp stories written as Carl Buchanan, as far as Victor Berch and I have been able to determine them, taken in part from The FictionMags Index:

BUCHANAN, CARL

   Victor adds “There is one other [detective] tale under the name Robert Peery, who, I assume, is our man.”

   To which I agree, and although it is has not yet been confirmed that Robert Peery is indeed James Robert Peery, here again from The FictionMags index are the following:

PEERY, ROBERT

   In addition, James Robert Peery had a letter published in the July 1939 issue of Clues, which neither Victor nor I have seen. If anyone has a copy of the magazine, we’d love to know what he had to say.