Johnny Saxon
Created by William G. Bogart (1903-1977)

Turns out there was another hard-boiled Bogart we have to deal with: William G. Bogart, who worked the pulp racket, both as an editor and later as a writer. But of particular interest to readers of this site would be the three good, gritty P.I. novels he wrote in the 1940s, featuring Manhattan private peeper JOHNNY SAXON.

The gimmick here is that Johnny isn't a hard-boiled private eye, really -- he used to be one, but now he's a hard-boiled private eye writer.

Of course, bodies do tend to pop up with alarming frequency. But it's his portrayal of the world of the "fast action magazines" that's most memorable. It's a portrayal that's every bit as viscious and acid-laced as Chandler's views of Hollywood.

Bogart was a prolific pulp jack-of-all-trades, probably best known for penning several Doc Savage novels, under the pseudonym Kenneth Robeson, as well as pumping out countless backup stories for such hero pulps as Doc Savage, The Shadow and The Avenger. But he wrote for all sorts of pulps, from romance and western to sci-fi and crime.

NOVELS

• Hell on Fridays (1940; aka "Murder Man"
• Murder is Forgetful (1944; aka "Johnny Saxon")
• The Queen City Murder Case (1946)...Buy this book

OMNIBUS EDITIONS

• Hell on Friday: The Johnny Saxon Trilogy (2010)...Buy this book...Kindle it!
  Includes all three novels.

Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.