Some Great Short Story Series, featuring Private Eyes
From the Pulps and Beyond

Every now and then, some wag suggests the private eye short story is dead. While it may not be thriving, as it did in the days of the pulps, or the late fifties/early sixties renaissance in the pages of Manhunt, Michael Shayne's Mystery Mag and the like, it's not dead yet, not by a long shot. PI shorts regularly pop up in AHMM, EQMM, MHCMM, and countless anthologies and collections.

The Pulps

• Race Williams by Carroll John Daly (real cheesy taste!)
• The Continental Op by Dashiell Hammett (classics, one and all)
• Max Latin by Norbert Davis (only five written, but definitely worth tracking down)
• Dan Turner by Robert Leslie Bellem (worth the geetus!)
• Cardigan and Donahue by Frederick Nebel
• Ed Jenkins by Erle Stanley Gardner
• Jo Gar by Ramon Decolta
• Carmady and John Dalmas by Raymond Chandler

The Tough Guy Years: Manhunt and the Like

• Shell Scott by Richard Prather
• Slot Machine Kelly by Dennis Lynds
• Manville Moon by Richard Deming

Beyond the Pulps

• Mike Shayne by Brett Halliday certainly the longest running string of P.I. short stories, with at least one appearing in each issue of MSMM, month in and month out, for its entire run)
• Matt Scudder by Lawrence Block
• Ben Perkins by Rob Kantner (one of the most interesting recent series. Kantner wrote something like two dozen short stories about Perkins, appearing in AHMM, EQMM, MSMM and the like, and winning a ton of awards along the way, before graduating to novels in the eighties and nineties. Alas, last I heard, his publisher had dropped him. Too bad. It was one of those series I really enjoyed, a real attempt to try something different in the genre, while being very aware of its roots. Though maybe there's hope. A few new stories have surfaced since 1998.)
• Dan Fortune by Michael Collins
• Cliff Hardy by Peter Corris (good modern day pulp from Australia)
• Amos Walker by Loren Estleman (now that the novels have started up again, I hope some short stories start popping up, as well...)
• Nameless by Bill Pronzini (over forty and counting...)
• Dan Kearney & Associates by Joe Gores (P.I. procedurals)
• John Francis Cuddy by Jeremiah Healy