Henry Smith

Created by Fredric Brown (1906-72)

HENRY SMITH was probably the most developed of Brown's detective series characters whose family name wasn't Hunter.

Not that Brown developed him much, although perhaps that might have been the point. Because Henry was a relatively generic guy, just an ordinary working stiff who just happened to be a whiz-bang salesman for the Phalanx Insurance Company. It just so happened that he was also a shrewd and savvy sleuth with a keen eye for chicanery and shenanigans. The consummate company man, he managed to crack cases -- and somehow still sell insurance policies -- in half a dozen short stories in various pulps in the forties, and one outlier in the early sixties.

SHORT STORIES

• "Life and Fire" (March 22, 1941, Detective Fiction Weekly) ...Buy this book
• "The Incredible Bomber" (March 1942, G-Men Detective)
• "A Change for the Hearse" (March 1943, New Detective Magazine)
• "Death Insurance Payment" (October 1943, Ten Detective Aces)
• "Bucket of Gems Case" (August 1944, Street & Smith's Detective Story Magazine; aka "Mr. Smith Kicks the Bucket")
• "Mr. Smith Protects a Client" (December 1946, Street & Smith's Detective Story Magazine; aka "Whistler's Murder")
• "Fatal Facsimile" (September 1962, The Saint Mystery Magazine)

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.

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