“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

Pulp Fest took place this past weekend in Pittsburgh. It’s a really cool event, and the Hilton Doubletree is a nice site. Steeger Books rolls out its summer line at this event. And for the third year in a row, there was a new Continental Op collection, with a brand new intro by yours truly. Getting to write about Dashiell Hammett remains a definite thrill. This volume wrapped up his pre-Cap Shaw career.

The talented Duane Spurlock wrote about T.T. Flynn’s Westerns a few Summers past. I’m a fan of those stories, and Duane did a better job covering them than I could have. I did write a Steeger Books intro for a Flynn book, though. Mr. Maddox is a bookie who makes the rounds of the horse racing circuit. And he finds dead bodies and crimes like Jessica Fletcher. I have the first two volumes of these novella length stories, and I wrote the intro for the third. So, here you go!

 

Thomas Theodore (better known as T. T.) Flynn Jr. began selling Westerns to the pulps early in 1932. Dime Western began its run, covering more than 250 issues over thirty years, with a T. T. Flynn story in the very first issue that December. Less than a year later, Star Western launched, with Flynn’s “Hell’s Half Acre” featured on the cover. He continued writing popular Westerns into the fifties, and he survived the demise of the Pulps by transitioning to Western paperbacks. His lone story to make The Saturday Evening Post became the popular James Stewart movie, The Man from Laramie.

But before roaming the pages of the Old West, Flynn was an accomplished mystery and hardboiled pulpster. The venerable Flynn’s (no relation), which ran for over 600 issues under multiple names, was less than a year old when his second story appeared in August of 1925. Three consecutive issues in December of that year included Flynn’s stories.

Though he never appeared in Black Mask, Flynn was in the very first issue of Dime Detective, in November of 1931. In fact, Flynn’s stories graced six of the first nine. Flynn was Dime Detective’s most prolific contributor, with 80 stories (Frederick C. Davis came in second, at 73). And only Frederick Nebel’s Cardigan appeared more times than Mr. Maddox, the horse-racing bookie who sure seemed to catch a lot of bad guys. Since Cardigan was a cop, Maddox appeared more times than any other non-detective/cop, with thirty-five stories.

Joe Maddox is a bookie who makes the rounds of the thoroughbred racing circuit. He manages to find murder and mayhem at race tracks the way that an Agatha Christie spinster does in a small rural village. He’s a racing tout, not a private eye or cop, but the stories are classic hardboiled mysteries.

The shenanigans are never of Maddox’ own making, but he often gets framed: and regularly gets knocked out along the way. He’s usually even-keeled, and the cover page for “Post-Mortem at Pimlico” refers to him as ‘The bland Buddha of the bangtail circuit.’ He always plays fair, has an assistant named Oscar, and sets up shop in a hotel room at each race. He’s a big-time bookie.

He dresses well and has a big diamond ring which is the symbol of his professional success. And it indicates that he has a bankroll and is ready for business. More than once, he is knocked out and wakes up to find the diamond missing. Getting it back is a side-quest in such cases.

But Maddox gets mad when acquaintances (and strangers, for that matter) turn up dead, and the police think he is responsible. He often carries a gun, and he’s tough in a tight spot. He’s also incredibly resistant to being killed, which almost happens a frightening number of times.

He has a nemesis, though it’s not a member of the police. Cassidy is a detective for the Masterson Detective Agency. They are employed by racetracks all over the country to cut down on pickpockets, race touts, and con men. Cassidy’s specialty was bookies, because they diverted money from the betting windows, costing the track owners. This repeatedly brings him into contact with Maddox. But he can never catch him; though he often is on his trail due to circumstances making Maddox look guilty. They are friendly enemies.

The Maddox stories are true novelettes, and longer than the typical Pulp story in Dime Detective, or Black Mask. I feel like they’re a little bit of a chore to read, but it’s not a problem. For me, it’s akin to Basil Copper’s Solar Pons stories being much longer than August Derleth’s originals: They’re still good. Just know it’s gonna take longer to read and get your closure on a Mr. Maddox story.

Post-Mortem at Pimlico appeared in the August, 1941 issue of Dime Detective.

That one also included a Peter Kane story from Hugh B. Cave. I wrote the intro to Steeger Books’ collection featuring Cave’s ultra-hard drinking Boston PI. Pimlico opened in Baltimore in 1870, and the one leg of the triple crown – The Preakness – is still run there today.

Maddox takes a one dollar bet from a little old flower-selling lady named Maggie, and a legendary racing name who had vanished thirty-two years ago wants to bet on the same race. Maddox rarely turns down a bet, but he does this time and gets rousted by Cassidy, who is furious when he realizes that the bookie declined the bet. Maddox goes to deliver her unexpected winnings, finding she lived in half of a coal shed; squalor that was a long way from the hotels and racetracks.

Before even setting foot in her place, he gets knocked out, robbed, and then awakens to find a dead man in the shack. These sorts of things seem to happen to Joe Maddox a lot. But worst of all, his diamond ring is gone! The ring is ‘Joe Maddox’ luck, his visible symbol of success, his source of ready cash when the bankroll was cleaned.’

Maddox realizes it looks like he is the killer, and a bookie saying he had been slugged unconscious for two hours, and dragged into the murder room, wasn’t too believable. Unfortunately, he was seen and can be identified. This story is a race against time to uncover everything so he can prove himself innocent. Maggie has vanished, so she’s no help to Maddox.

The race was fixed for Maggie’s horse, with bookies across the country taking a hit. Maddox now has two mysteries to solve. Three, if you count finding Maggie. A mysterious French woman, a newspaper Society reporter, the ever-annoying Cassidy, a supercilious racing stable owner, and some goons, give this one of the most entertaining casts of any Maddox story.

Maddox is never afraid of gun play, and this one has quite a showdown. He is one tough bookie.

The Devil in the Horse Van had the cover for the December, 1941 issue of Dime Detective. And it’s also the cover of this Volume III.

Maddox and Oscar are in a late-night diner, on their way to Chicago. The second Washington Park race track (the first one having opened, been shut down by an anti-gambling mayor, reopened, then closed again) opened in 1926. Some of the racing was shifted to the newer Arlington Park over the years, and when the grandstand burned down in 1977, the park was closed for good.

The horse-truck driver who sits down next to him, sporting three fresh, livid scratches on his cheek, orders a cup of coffee, two dozen ripe bananas, five large sacks of popcorn, an old spoon, and some large-sized matches. Clearly, weird surprises lie ahead in this one.

Oscar had discovered a damsel in distress in the horse truck, also a strange. mostly passed-out man, and then got knocked out by the scratched-cheek driver, who promptly decamped. Maddox sets out after him but doesn’t see the truck and arrives in Chicago.

Once there, the pretty fiance of track co-owner and millionaire Matt Braden visits his room. Matt is missing and had told her he wanted to talk to Maddox. Once again, through no doing of his own, the bookie is being pulled into trouble.

Braden calls Maddox and asks him to meet him at a bungalow near the racetrack. Maddox walks in the door, and it’s lights out! In a new twist, he wakes up far out in Lake Michigan, and there is no miles-long heroic swim to shore. He manages to not drown until a small boat passes by and rescues him. The two old salts let him recover in their shack: drying out his belongings, feeding him, and even having his clothes pressed. They also show him a newspaper that reveals Braden was found drowned in the lake, wearing a life preserver. Maddox was believed to be with him and the police are looking for him: or his body. Naturally, Cassidy shows up and wants to take him in for murder. Maddox is always ducking the next brick thrown at him.

Braden was Maddox’ friend, and the bookie hates to be framed – though you think he’d be used to it by now…. Cassidy cuts him a break and it’s another race to find the guilty party before Joe Maddox takes the fall. Maddox finds out that Braden had been digging into some track corruption, and it seemed to get him dead. Multiple wills, more corpses; it’s typical Mr. Maddox trouble.

Happy Murder to You was the first of three Maddox stories in 1942, appearing in the April issue.

It’s wintry cold up north, and the Buddha of the Bangtail Circuit decides to enjoy the warmer climes at Miami’s Tropical Park. The Park opened in 1931 on 245 acres, and was built by a Prohibition-Era bootlegger. It was the first track to use a synthetic surface, which was developed by 3M. A rubberized track was inside the regular dirt track, and it was used for one race a day. But most trainers and owners refused to race on it. The track was closed in 1972, and was converted into a County Park in 1979.

This time around, it’s Maddox’s birthday, but he’s surprised when popular bandleader Eddie Reiser hands him a $1,000 bill as a present. Reiser does a quick fade while Maddox is distracted, and the bookie is left with the bill.

Before he can even put it away, Cassidy of the Masterson Detective Agency grabs his wrist and says he’s taking him in for illegal betting. Maddox uses a slick move to break free and mixes the bill in with his healthy bankroll. Cassidy is furious, but he can’t do anything and stomps off, madder at Maddox than ever.

Somebody else had handed him a thousand dollar bill. An anonymous letter at the desk contained one. A bettor dropped one off as a deposit. And a female acquaintance gives him one. Totally unexpectedly, he received five $1,000 bills on his birthday. Maddox can never leave something along, and he digs into the matter. Whereupon he quickly finds a woman he knows dumping Eddie Reiser’s body overboard. Surprisingly, Maddox isn’t instantly the lead suspect, which usually seems to happen when he stumbles onto a dead body.

Two postal inspectors show up with a warrant, looking for thousand dollar bills related to mail fraud. Maddox had previously gotten the bills off his person and out of the room. As usual, when someone tries to frame Maddox, the bookie starts digging. No surprise, he finds trouble, and some race-fixing this time.

Flynn again got the cover mention in August of 1942 with Tijuana Kill-Trap.

That issue also included a Bail Bond Dodd story from Norbert Davis. Add in Cornell Woolrich, and Hugh B. Cave, and that’s some good reading for a dime!

This time, we see Maddox south of the border, proving that he can find trouble – or rather, trouble can find him – in any country. There was horse-racing at The Aqua Caliente Racetrack (part of a casino and resort) operated from 1929 to 1992, Early on it was very popular with Americans from nearby states where gambling, drinking, and horse racing were still illegal. There is still greyhound racing at the track, today.

Maddox takes on a bet from Blackie Dale, and Oscar has a fit. Dale was a finger man for the Chicago mob, and had relocated from Hollywood to Tijuana. Oscar sees nothing but trouble coming from the association. It’s not a bad view. Maddox takes two big bets on a questionable choice, in a race featuring all female jockeys. But soon hears a rumor that he is is set to take a big fall. Something isn’t on the square, and Maddox was ‘sober enough to feel the cold, chilling touch of disaster.’

Maddox pushes the odds down at the last second, to cut his losses. But the horse he was sure was fixed to win, finishes sixth. It makes no sense, and Maddox is determined to find out what it’s all about. And the reader just knows this is going to get him into some lethal danger.

A body turns up and his old nemesis, Cassidy, suspects Maddox: He often does. As always, events continue to develop that make Maddox look guilty. Between grave danger and being framed, it’s amazing that Maddox continued to make his living at as a bookie at the horse tracks.

Dime Detective editor Kenneth White encouraged his writers to develop non-traditional heroes. He wanted more than the typical private eye, or reporter. The aptly named Bail Bond Dodd, and Flynn’s horse-race bookie Joe Maddox, are two excellent examples. They provide all the necessary hardboiled PI fare, but from atypical professions. They don’t look for trouble, but they always find it.

Maddox has managed to survive fourteen stories so far in these Steeger Books collections. Readers are exposed to a new locale and a new racetrack each story, which was pretty neat in the thirties and forties. With his bankroll and his diamond ring, the bookie brings action to the track. Though, not the kind he is looking for.

 

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Bob Byrne’s ‘A (Black) Gat in the Hand’ made its Black Gate debut in 2018 and has returned every summer since.

His ‘The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes’ column ran every Monday morning at Black Gate from March, 2014 through March, 2017. And he irregularly posts on Rex Stout’s gargantuan detective in ‘Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone.’ He is a member of the Praed Street Irregulars, founded www.SolarPons.com (the only website dedicated to the ‘Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street’).

He organized Black Gate’s award-nominated ‘Discovering Robert E. Howard’ series, as well as the award-winning ‘Hither Came Conan’ series. Which is now part of THE Definitive guide to Conan. He also organized 2023’s ‘Talking Tolkien.’

He has contributed stories to The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories — Parts III, IV, V, VI, XXI, and XXXIII.

He has written introductions for Steeger Books, and appeared in several magazines, including Black Mask, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, The Strand Magazine, and Sherlock Magazine.

You can definitely ‘experience the Bobness’ at Jason Waltz’s ’24? in 42′ podcast.