Larry Kent
Created by Ron Ingleby

"It was an underground joint. A neon sign in read and blue and yellow flashed on and off over the stone steps. The neon sign showed kicking girls and glasses of bubbly stuff. But you were just as likely to get a Mickey Finn down there as you were to get a glass of champagne."
Get Me Homicide

He hates crime and he's been known to sport a bow tie! He's LARRY KENT and he first made his debut as a half-hour program on Australian radio in 1950 written by Ron Ingleby. Originally a newshound from the Big Apple, Kent emigrated to Australia and set himself up business as a private eye. Like his counterparts at the time back in the States, Kent was always getting into trouble, but that never prevented him from appreciating the female form. His favourite pasttime was, he frequently reminded us, "Watching the blondes go by."

It may have been all clichés, but the series proved to be quite popular and over 150 episodes were produced, which in turn inspired Cleveland Publishing of Sydney to try their hand at some Larry Kent novels.  In April 1954, the first series of monthly novelettes appeared, for a shilling each, with a second series following the subsequent year.

Amazingly, eventually over 400 Larry Kent novels and novelettes were pumped out under the Larry Kent byline in the next thirty years, and supposedly, as late as the 1990s, the series was still being produced in Scandinavia. The covers usually featured paintings of leggy, full-figured babes and sported such snappy (and often exclamation mark-endowed) titles as Kill Me a Little, This Way, Sucker!, Cute Heat!, Dig Me a Dame! and Stand Up and Die! Add on the 150 or so radio shows, and our Larry turns out to be one of the hardest working eyes around...

The printed stories returned Larry to the States, mostly New York City, where he continued working as a P.I., smoking Luckies and drinking whisky. His stomping grounds are pure New York, full of Harlem nightclubs and Manhatten steakhouses, but he did occassionally venture further afield, to Vegas, South America, Los Angeles, Berlin, Cuba and even New Jersey. And he even made it to Australia a few times, in Deadline Down Under, The Nitty Griity, Death Call and The Big Grab.

Ingleby may have written the radio shows, but he never wrote any of the books. Among those who did write under the Larry Kent name were Don Haring, an American like Larry who settled in Australia after WWII, and died in the 1980s, and Des R. Dunn from Queensland.  But it's hard to tell who wrote what, really. They were squirted out so quickly that accurate copyright info and author attribution would have only slowed them down.

Although the books were decidedly hokey pulp affairs, and by no means great literature, the covers themselves have a gorgeously cheesy flavour, and are now quite collectible. In fact, most of the web sites featuring Kent deal as much with the covers than the contents of the books.

THE EVIDENCE

UNDER OATH

RADIO

NOVELETTES

NOVELS

RELATED LINKS

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
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