Sun 24 Feb 2019
Inquiry Re WADE MILLER’s Max Thursday Pulp Stories.
Posted by Steve under Inquiries , Pulp Fiction[8] Comments
Hi Steve
Can you tell me about the two Thursday short stories/novelettes?
“Murder Has Girl Trouble†Mystery Book Magazine, Spring 1950
“The Corpse Walked Away†Two Complete Detective Books, January 1951
Are these stories different from the stories in the six novels? Or were they later expanded into two of the six novels?
Thank you,
Joe
February 24th, 2019 at 5:28 pm
Joe
My guess is that these were both condensed versions of two of the Thursday novels. Neither were short stories or even novelettes, but were published as short novels in magazines that specialized in doing just that.
It’s still only a guess,though. Is anyone able to say more?
February 24th, 2019 at 9:21 pm
Steve,
I think you are right about these being condensed versions of the novels under different titles rather than source or different material. It was a fairly common practice in the pulps.
February 24th, 2019 at 10:05 pm
Here’s a list of the Max Thursday novels.
Guilty Bystander (n.) Farrar 1947
Fatal Step (n.) Farrar 1948
Uneasy Street (n.) Farrar 1948
Calamity Fair (n.) Farrar 1950
Murder Charge (n.) Farrar 1950
Shoot to Kill (n.) Farrar 1951
with summaries of each here:
https://mysteryfile.com/Wade/Miller.html#Niebuhr
Now all we need is someone with access to the magazines, which unfortunately aren’t considered all that collectible.
February 25th, 2019 at 12:22 am
My guess would be one of the last three.
February 25th, 2019 at 11:09 am
The fine print at the bottom of the Two Complete Detective Books cover says “soon to be published in book form” so that would probably make it “Shoot to Kill.”
February 25th, 2019 at 9:46 pm
Makes a lot of sense, Ken. Thanks!
October 10th, 2020 at 6:07 am
“Murder Has Girl Trouble†from Mystery Book Magazine was republished as “Calamity Fair”.
October 10th, 2020 at 9:00 am
Thanks, Saskia!