Scott Jordan
Created by Harold Q. Masur (pseudo.
includes Helen Traubel)
Quick-thinking, in your face New York attorney SCOTT JORDAN
appeared in a string of fast-paced, tightly-plotted novels and
short stories, mostly in the fifties and sixties. Whereas PERRY
MASON, another lawyer with P.I. tendencies soon settled down,
Scott never lost his brash, energetic, confrontational style,
or his willingness to rough it up for a client. In fact, one blurb
proudly proclaims that Scott's "no dried up legal eagle --
he's just as much at home with a .38...as he is in court."
The novels were narrated in the first person, and if they weren't
quite as hard-boiled as that enthusiastic blurb promised, they
were nonetheless satisfyingly medium-boiled.
Author Masur was himself a lawyer, before turning to writing.
He also edited several anthologies of short stories, under the
byline of Alfred Hitchcock., and served as president of the Mystery
Writers of America in 1973. He also ghosted opera singer Helen
Traubel 's The Metropolitan Opera Murders (1951).
TRIVIA
- "Masur often told the story of mentioning in an early
novel that his character smoked Camel cigarettes. Some weeks
after the novel appeared, he received two cartons of cigarettes
from the tobacco company. In his next novel his character drove
a Cadillac but the complimentary car never appeared."
(Richard Moore)
NOVELS
- Bury Me Deep (1947)
- Suddenly a Corpse (1949)
- You Can't Live Forever (1951)
- So Rich, So Lovely, So Dead (1952)
- The Big Money (1954)
- Tall, Dark and Deadly (1956)
- The Last Gamble (1958; AKA The Last Breath)
- Send Another Hearse (1960)
- Make a Killing (1964)
- The Legacy Lenders (1967)
- The Mourning After (1981)
SHORT STORIES
- "Widow In Waiting" (1949; 1960, The Name Is Jordan)
- "Richest Man In The Morgue" (1953; 1960, The Name
Is Jordan)
- "The Double Frame" (1953; 1960, The Name Is Jordan)
- "The Mourning After" (1953; 1960, The Name Is Jordan)
- "Rhapsody In Blood" (1953; 1960, The Name Is Jordan)
- "Dead Issue" (1954; 1960, The Name Is Jordan)
- "Over My Dead Body" (1954; 1960, The Name Is Jordan)
- "Self-Defense" (1955; 1960, The Name Is Jordan)
- "The Woman Who Knew Too Much" (1957; 1960, The
Name Is Jordan)
- "Silent Butler" (1960; 1960, The Name Is Jordan)
- "The Corpse Maker" (1965, Come Seven, Come Death)
- "The Graft Is Green" (May 1973, AHMM)
COLLECTIONS
- The Name Is Jordan (1962)
Respectfully submitted by Kevin
Burton Smith. And thanks to David
Nobriga for his quick eye.
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