Shell Scott

I'm familar with the happy-go-lucky Shell Scott, a private eye created by Richard S. Prather in the 1950 novel Case of the Vanishing Beauty. He went on to appear in over 30 novels during the next three decades, as well as a metric ton of short stories. He was, apparently, able to give Mike Hammer a run for the money in popularity during the '50s.

But I never got around to reading any of the Shell Scott books or stories. There's just too much stuff out there to read and I never quite get around to reading everything.

Well, now I have. I've been reading through an anthology of hard-boiled stuff from the 1950s, which includes "The Double Take," from the July 1953 issue of Manhunt, a digest from that decade notable for the high-quality of its storie.

In this one, Shell is beginning his day by stopping by a bar for a drink--this being his way of dealing with a hangover. But he doesn't get time to enjoy his drink. A woman he's never seen before bursts in, accuses him of stealing $24,000, and then shoots at him.

She gets away through a ladies' room window. Shell heads back to his office, only to find someone at his desk claiming to be him. When Shell confronts the imposter, someone else slugs him from behind.

It's all very confusing and isn't helping his hangover at all. What follows is a short, but very well-constructed tale, with Shell playing intelligent hunches and following up solid clues to figure out what's going on. My understanding is that Prather's Shell Scott stories could often get pretty goofy and that's part of their fun. This particular story, though, is pretty straightfoward private eye stuff. Within that context, though, it's got a strong protagonist and a very-well constructed story.

It turns out that the bad guys are con artists who are using Shell's well-earned reputation as honesty as part of a ploy to pull off a series a real estate scams. Shell eventually manages to identify and catch the bad guys in the act of getting money from their latest victim. The excitement of the final confrontation is spiced up with an hilarious scene in which Shell can't convince the latest victim that he really has been scammed.

So I guess I can see where the series' reputation for a degree of ruthlessness comes in. In any case, I enjoyed this particular story enormously. It can be found in an anthology titled The Best of Manhunt.