“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 in Pittsburgh first week of the month. It’s a really cool event, and the Hilton Doubletree is a nice site. Steeger Books rolls out its Summer line at this event. Last week I shared the latest intro I wrote for Hammett’s Continental Op series; which is up to four volumes. This week, it’s my other new Steeger release. I’m a big fan of W.T. Ballard’s Hollywood studios troubleshooter, Bill Lennox. He’s a neat take on the hardboiled PI. 

Lennox was featured in short stories and novels, and I wrote the intro for Volume 2.

Willis T. Ballard’s middle name is ‘Todhunter.’ While that is certainly a rare one, it is also the middle name of his cousin, Rex Stout, who created the hugely popular Nero Wolfe. Apparently Todhunter is a good name if you want to become a successful writer.

Ballard grew up in Cleveland and attended college in Ohio. His father-in-law was a well-known cartoonist who went by ‘Dwig.’ He wandered out West during the Depression and had been trying to sell to the New York pulps with minimal success.

He saw a Detective Dragnet Magazine with one of his stories in a store window (likely “Easy Does It,” in December, 1930). As he walked away, a man called out his name: it was Harry Warner, who he had known somewhat back in Cleveland, where the family had been making movie trailers for local organizations. Warner asked what Ballard was doing in Hollywood. He exaggerated a bit, bought that magazine and gave it to Warner, saying he was a freelance writer. A little self-promotion never hurt anybody, right?

Warner and his brothers had just taken over First National Studios, and impressed with Ballard, Harry W. hired him as a screenwriter at a good salary. That gig lasted eight months until Ballard made a crack about Warner, not knowing the man was standing behind him. Fired! I can’t help but picture Billy Crystal and Jack Palance in City Slickers.

Ballard was picked up by Columbia Pictures, who hired him to produce B-films for $10,000 each. To hit that target, Ballard had to write the script, direct and produce, and even move scenery. He endured this exhausting assignment for six months – but these two studio jobs had given him an invaluable inside knowledge of the industry. Ballard built a career on that foundation.

In 1931 he was struggling, trying to write and sell to Detective Story Magazine, which favored Agatha Christie/Mary Roberts Rinehart-types of mysteries. While living at his his uncle’s house, he heard a radio ad for The Maltese Falcon, a movie starring Ricardo Cortez (Bogart hit gold in the third adaptation). Intrigued, he went to see the movie. As Ballard said in an excellent interview conducted by Stephen Mertz: “Hammett’s ear for words sounded the way I thought criminals and detectives should talk. It rang true, the way I wanted mine to do.”

And from this experience, Ballard learned of Black Mask for the first time. After the movie, he went around the corner, bought the latest issue, and read it on the streetcar ride home. He was hooked.

Ballard didn’t want to write about some typical newspaper reporter. His friend Jim Lawson worked at Universal Studios and was often called on to get stars out of trouble. Ballard liked the idea, knowing he had the studio experience to write realistically.  Using the phone book to help with names, he started writing around midnight that very night. By five in the morning, he had a 10,000-word story featuring Bill Lennox, trouble-shooter for General Consolidated Studio. He mailed off the manuscript and went to bed. It’s a good thing he decided to go to the movies that night.

Ballard was out of work, living with his relatives, and getting paid a quarter of-a-cent to one cent per word for the ‘lesser’ detective pulps like Gun Molls Magazine. Within a week, Joe ‘Cap’ Shaw – famed editor of Black Mask – had asked for a few changes (including that Lennox not carry a gun), but had also sent a check, buying the story.

Ballard wrote and sold seven more Lennox stories in three weeks, with Shaw’s boss, Phil Cody, finally telling the editor to take a break from them.

He co-wrote a novel, Murder Picks the Jury, with fellow pulpster Norbert Davis (who used the name Harrison Hunt). Ballard had an award-winning career writing Western paperbacks long after the Pulps had died out. He also wrote for TV shows such as Death Valley Days, Dick Tracy, and Shotgun Slade; sometimes with Robert Leslie Bellem (writer of the spicy Dan Turner stories).

Sol Spurck is the typical bossy studio mogul who runs Consolidated. Nancy Hobbs is a reporter and Lennox’ truest friend in the series. She often urges him to leave Hollywood, go back East, and write a novel. But while he’s managed to avoid the moral corruption of Tinsel Town, he can’t pull free of its allure. Both characters appear frequently in the stories.

Here we have four stories which appeared in consecutive months, from September through December, 1934.

“Crime’s Web” sees Lennox in Chicago, where he had been a newspaper reporter before heading out to Hollywood. The district manager seems to be helping himself to the profits, and Lennox is there to make sure the ‘expert accountants’ (what we now call ‘forensic accountants’) are left alone to do their job. But Lennox finds himself saving a damsel in distress, while at odds with a local mob boss pushing his way into the theater business.

This is typical good-guy Lennox, taking on hooligans. And assisting a female who would rather cause him difficulties than help him out. We never do get around to the audit plot. Lennox will always go to extremes to help a woman in trouble; even if common sense says to move along. It’s inherent in his character.

“In Dead Man’s Alley” sends Lennox to a bustling mining town, where Consolidated is shooting a big-budget picture on location. And where the mayor is holding the lead actor for the murder of his son. This story reads like a Western, with Lennox the gunslinger coming in and taking on the whole town. And it’s got a femme fatale this time around. Shades of Dashiell Hammett’s “Corkscrew.”

“Snatching is Dynamite” and “Murder isn’t Legal” are something of a two-parter. The first raises the stakes from the usual ‘star in trouble.’ Studio moguls (The Council of Five) get together ala the Secret Six which hired Eliot Ness to bring down Al Capone. They want to rid Hollywood of the criminal element (good luck with that!), and for Lennox to be their Untouchable. It’s all anonymous, and Lennox’ involvement is kept secret.

The Hollywood handyman finds himself dealing with another girl in distress, and a nightclub hoodlum who is a nemesis for Lennox. Spurck is kidnapped, Lennox keeps the police at arm’s length, and another pretty female causes more trouble than she provides help. There’s no shortage of femme fatales in Ballard’s stories.

“Murder Isn’t Legal” builds up the aforementioned nemesis, and the Council of Five is in play again. The standard damsel in distress keeps her secrets and just puts Lennox in more peril.

Bill Lennox isn’t quite a boy scout. But he never seems to abandon these troublesome women, and he has to be pushed to the edge of no return to commit major violence upon someone. These stories would be shorter if he’d just shoot a villain in the knee when he has the chance. But that wouldn’t be very suspenseful, would it?

Lennox is easy to root for, and Ballard did not have him helping slimy studio execs, or deviant film stars. He’s on the side of right, and whether he’s shot, beaten, or just exhausted, he stays on track with dogged determination. He doesn’t rest until he gets his man. The stories have the usual hardboiled vibe, but the Hollywood environment sets them apart from the typical Pulp PI.

There had been 11 Lennox stories in Black Mask over 16 months. There would only be 11 over the next 60 months. Ballard remained busy, even creating Red Drake, a horse racetrack inspector. And he was writing Westerns, which he would do into the late fifties. Lennox would appear in five novels – some built on existing short stories, ala Raymond Chandler.

You can find descriptions, and links, to all of my Steeger intros so far, here

Prior Posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2026 (9)
Dashiell Hammett’s The Main Death (my intro)
Will Murray on Lester Dent’s Lost Detective
Front Porch Pulp and Frank Kane
After Dark, My Sweet
Ten Things I Think I Think (Gat Edition)
Rory Gallagher & The Continental Op (again)
Spider-Noir
Elliott Gould Reads Chandler
All My Steeger Books Intros

Prior Posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2025 (12)
Will Murray on Dash(iell Hammet) and (Lester) Dent
Shelfie – Dashiell Hammett
Windy City Pulp & Paper Fest – 2025
Will Murray on Who was N.V. Romero?
Conan – The Phoenix in the Sword in Weird Tales
More of Robert E. Howard’s Kirby O’Donnell
More Weird Menace from Robert E. Howard – Conrad and Kirowan
Hardboiled Gaming- LA Noire
Western Noir: Hell on Wheels
T.T. Flynn’s Mr Maddox
Dashiell Hammettt’s The Scorched Face (my intro)
Will Murray on Raymond Chandler’s Other Lost Stories?

Prior Posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2024 Series (11)
Will Murray on Other Lost Raymond Chandler Stories?
Will Murray on Dashiell Hammett’s Elusive Glass Key
Ya Gotta Ask – Reprise
Rex Stout’s “The Mother of Invention”
Dime Detective, August, 1941
John D. MacDonald’s “Ring Around the Readhead”
Harboiled Manila – Raoul Whitfield’s Jo Gar
7 Upcoming A (Black) Gat in the Hand Attractions
Paul Cain’s Fast One (my intro)
Dashiell Hammett – The Girl with the Silver Eyes (my intro)
Richard Demming’s Manville Moon
More Thrilling Adventures from REH

Prior Posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2023 Series (15)

Back Down those Mean Streets in 2023
Will Murray on Hammett Didn’t Write “The Diamond Wager”
Dashiell Hammett – ZigZags of Treachery (my intro)
Ten Pulp Things I Think I Think
Evan Lewis on Cleve Adams
T,T, Flynn’s Mike & Trixie (The ‘Lost Intro’)
John Bullard on REH’s Rough and Ready Clowns of the West – Part I (Breckenridge Elkins)
John Bullard on REH’s Rough and Ready Clowns of the West – Part II
William Patrick Murray on Supernatural Westerns, and Crossing Genres
Erle Stanley Gardner’s ‘Getting Away With Murder (And ‘A Black (Gat)’ turns 100!)
James Reasoner on Robert E. Howard’s Trail Towns of the old West
Frank Schildiner on Solomon Kane
Paul Bishop on The Fists of Robert E. Howard
John Lawrence’s Cass Blue
Dave Hardy on REH’s El Borak

Prior posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2022 Series (16)
Asimov – Sci Fi Meets the Police Procedural
The Adventures of Christopher London
Weird Menace from Robert E. Howard
Spicy Adventures from Robert E. Howard
Thrilling Adventures from Robert E. Howard
Norbert Davis’ “The Gin Monkey”
Tracer Bullet
Shovel’s Painful Predicament
Back Porch Pulp #1
Wally Conger on ‘The Hollywood Troubleshooter Saga’
Arsenic and Old Lace
David Dodge
Glen Cook’s Garrett, PI
John Leslie’s Key West Private Eye
Back Porch Pulp #2
Norbert Davis’ Max Latin

Prior posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2021 Series (7 )
The Forgotten Black Masker – Norbert Davis
Appaloosa
A (Black) Gat in the Hand is Back!
Black Mask – March, 1932
Three Gun Terry Mack & Carroll John Daly
Bounty Hunters & Bail Bondsmen
Norbert Davis in Black Mask – Volume 1

Prior posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2020 Series (21)
Hardboiled May on TCM
Some Hardboiled streaming options
Johnny O’Clock (Dick Powell)
Hardboiled June on TCM
Bullets or Ballots (Humphrey Bogart)
Phililp Marlowe – Private Eye (Powers Boothe)
Cool and Lam
All Through the Night (Bogart)
Dick Powell as Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar
Hardboiled July on TCM
YTJD – The Emily Braddock Matter (John Lund)
Richard Diamond – The Betty Moran Case (Dick Powell)
Bold Venture (Bogart & Bacall)
Hardboiled August on TCM
Norbert Davis – ‘Have one on the House’
with Steven H Silver: C.M. Kornbluth’s Pulp
Norbert Davis – ‘Don’t You Cry for Me’
Talking About Philip Marlowe
Steven H Silver Asks you to Name This Movie
Cajun Hardboiled – Dave Robicheaux
More Cool & Lam from Hard Case Crime

A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2019 Series (15)
Back Deck Pulp Returns
A (Black) Gat in the Hand Returns
Will Murray on Doc Savage
Hugh B. Cave’s Peter Kane
Paul Bishop on Lance Spearman
A Man Called Spade
Hard Boiled Holmes
Duane Spurlock on T.T. Flynn
Andrew Salmon on Montreal Noir
Frank Schildiner on The Bad Guys of Pulp
Steve Scott on John D. MacDonald’s ‘Park Falkner’
William Patrick Murray on The Spider
John D. MacDonald & Mickey Spillane
Norbert Davis goes West(ern)
Bill Crider on The Brass Cupcake

A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2018 Series (32)
George Harmon Coxe
Raoul Whitfield
Some Hard Boiled Anthologies
Frederick Nebel’s Donahue
Thomas Walsh
Black Mask – January, 1935
Norbert Davis’ Ben Shaley
D.L. Champion’s Rex Sackler
Dime Detective – August, 1939
Back Deck Pulp #1
W.T. Ballard’s Bill Lennox
Erle Stanley Gardner’s The Phantom Crook (Ed Jenkins)
Day Keene
Black Mask – October, 1933
Back Deck Pulp #2
Black Mask – Spring, 2017
Erle Stanley Gardner’s ‘The Shrieking Skeleton’
Frank Schildiner’s ‘Max Allen Collins & The Hard Boiled Hero’
A (Black) Gat in the Hand: William Campbell Gault
A (Black) Gat in the Hand: More Cool & Lam From Hard Case Crime
MORE Cool & Lam!!!!
Thomas Parker’s ‘They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?’
Joe Bonadonna’s ‘Hardboiled Film Noir’ (Part One)
Joe Bonadonna’s ‘Hardboiled Film Noir’ (Part Two)
William Patrick Maynard’s ‘The Yellow Peril’
Andrew P Salmon’s ‘Frederick C. Davis’
Rory Gallagher’s ‘Continental Op’
Back Deck Pulp #3
Back Deck Pulp #4
Back Deck Pulp #5
Joe ‘Cap’ Shaw on Writing
Back Deck Pulp #6
The Black Mask Dinner

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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, and 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.