Michael Shayne
Created By Brett Halliday (pseudonym of Davis Dresser, who also wrote as Asa Baker, Mathew Blood, Kathryn Culver, Don Davis, Hal Debrett, Anthony Scott, Anderson Wayne; 1904-1977)

NOTE: "Brett Halliday" subsequently was a housename for a variety of writers, including Dennis Lynds, Sam Merwin Jr., Michael Avallone, Richard Deming, Robert Turner, Robert Arthur, Frank Belknap Long, Bill Pronzini and Jeff Wallman, Edward Y. Breese, Peter Germano, Hal Blythe and Charlie Sweet, and Hal Charles and James R. Reasoner..

One of the most popular private detectives ever, red-haired Miami P.I. MICHAEL SHAYNE has had a long, successful, multi-media career. Shayne was created and first appeared in the 1939 novel, Dividend on Death, by Davis Dresser, published under the pseudonym Brett Halliday. Dresser wrote fifty Shayne novels (with a little help from ghostwriters such as Ryerson Johnson) and twenty-seven more were written by Robert Terrall and published as paperback originals by Dell, still under the pseudonym Brett Halliday. So that's 77 novels, over 300 short stories, a dozen films, radio and television shows and even a few comic book appearances.

Because of his omnipresence, more than one wag has ventured to call Mike the "Generic Private Eye" but that may be missing the point.

According to author L.J. Washburn, "Shayne may have ended up that way, but he certainly didn't start out like that. The first half-dozen or so Shayne novels are unlike anything else in the genre I've read, a cross between hard-boiled private eye, screwball comedy, and fair-play detection. The screwball angle comes from Phyllis Shayne, Mike Shayne's beautiful young wife, and their relationship is much like what would have happened if Sam Spade had married Pam North (for those of you who remember Pam and Jerry North). The books are very well plotted, and Shayne even gathers the suspects in the end to explain the crime and name the murderer, just like Nero Wolfe or Ellery Queen. However, Phyllis was something of a limited character, so Dresser got her out of town (and off screen) in a couple of books, then killed her off when he sold the movie rights to the series. However, that led to maybe the best book in the series, Blood on the Black Market, in which all the comedy angles disappear and Shayne has to deal with Phyllis's death. Shayne's characterization in this book is a definite forerunner to such characters as Nameless and Matt Scudder.

Of course, after that the Shayne novels do tend to become more standard private eye fare, but I think some of those early novels are very worth of rediscovery." Washburn can certainly claim to know her stuff, having written, or co-written (with her husband, fellow crime writer James M. Reasoner) thirty-seven Mike Shayne stories under the pseudonym of Brett Halliday for Michael Shayne Mystery Magazine (later to be known as Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine) which had been introduced in 1956 by Renown Publications. It continued for almost three decades as one of the few digests to offer detective fiction of a noticeably harder type than was generally available. Each issue featured a Mike Shayne story by Brett Halliday, ranging from 7500 word short stories to 20,000 word novellas.

However, this "Brett Halliday" was not Davis Dresser, but a variety of other writers, several of them quite accomplished detective writers themselves, including Dennis Lynds (AKA Michael Collins, the most prolific, with 88 stories), Sam Merwin Jr. (the magazine's first editor), Michael Avallone, Richard Deming, Robert Turner, Robert Arthur, Frank Belknap Long, Bill Pronzini and Jeff Wallman, Edward Y. Breese, Peter Germano, Hal Blythe and Charlie Sweet, and Hal Charles and James Reasoner.

In fact, Halliday also gave up writing the Shayne novels in 1958 with Murder and the Wanton Bride, although of course it continued, being ghosted by such other writers as Robert Terrall, Ryerson Johnson and Dennis Lynds. One of the ingredients of the formula Halliday had concocted in 1939, and to which he had faithfully adhered during his tenure as Shayne's writer, was a certain timeless quality. This fact allowed Shayne's other writers to bring him well into the 1980s.

But no matter who was doing the writing, Michael Shayne proved to be a popular character, not only in print, but in film, radio and even television. In 1940, the first of a long string of films made its debut and set the pattern for a dozen or so more.

A radio show featuring Mike debuted on Mutual as a West Coast regional in October 1944 with Wally Maher in the lead. Although mystery writer Brett Halliday got the credit for creating this detective and bringing him to radio, he never wrote any scripts but was happy enough to pick up the royalty checks. There were three separate versions of this show over the years.

In October 1946 it went coast-to-coast, lasting until November 1947. It was resurrected on Mutual in July 1948, under the title of "New Adventures of Michael Shayne" with Jeff Chandler in the lead, and it ran for two years. The last version began in October 1952 on ABC, first with Donald Curtis playing Shayne, and later with Robert Sterling. This third and last series went off the air in July 1953.

In all versions, Shayne was "that reckless, red-headed Irishman" Halliday originally described, who used brain and brawn equally, though the writers tended to have Mike take the physical approach to solving most problems. Easier to write, I guess. His assistant, a lovely blonde named Phyl Knight, was not prominent in most of the episodes. About 30 programs (most starring Chandler) are in trading currency today.

And in 1960, Michael Shayne moved onto television, with Richard Denning playing Shayne.

The television show was popular enough that a Dell comic book soon followed, a tie-in with the show, although the comics were actually based on Brett Halliday novels, not mere adaptations of T.V. episodes. The first issue adapted The Private Practice of Michael Shayne, where Shayne first meets Phyllis Brighton; the second adapted Bodies Are Where You Find Them, wherein a woman ends up dead in Shayne's bed amid speculation on what she was doing there in the first place (They always claimed "Dell Comics are GOOD comics."); and the third issue featured Heads...You Lose, where Phyllis dies in childbirth. I've always wondered what made Dell choose to go this route. Those early Halliday novels contained material that wasn't normally found in "good" comics -- drugs abounded, adultery was rampant, and the shortages in America during World War II were noted. Dell made similar decisions with Ed McBain's 87th Precinct Comics.

NOVELS

COLLECTIONS

SHORT STORIES
All published as by Brett Halliday

FILMS

RADIO

TELEVISION

COMIC BOOKS

RELATED LINKS

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Radio information contributed by Jack French, and comic info contributed by Don McGregor. And thanks for the "Gotcha!" from J. Ken MacDonald.

| Table of Contents | Detectives A-L M-Z | Film | Radio | Television | Comics | FAQs |
| Trivia | Authors | Hall of Fame | Mystery Links | Bibliography | Glossary | Search |
| What's New: On The Site | On the Street | Non-Fiction | Fiction | Staff | The P.I. Poll |

Drop a dime. Your comments, suggestions, corrections and contributions are always welcome.
"...and I'll tell you right out that I'm a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk."