Robert E. Howard's Private Eye

[00:00:09]Hi everyone, Jim here. Welcome to my channel. Well, for those of you out there who only know of Roberty Howard through the Conan stories, it might surprise you that he also wrote detective stories. Or maybe you're not surprised because he was a pulp writer and he did write in every every genre and every market that was available to him. But uh what I want to talk about today is his uh pseudo private eye character called Steve Harrison. Now you can find all of Steve Harrison's stories in this book, the Steve Harrison case book u from uh Roberty Howard Foundation Press. This is just a fantastic book.

[00:00:51]Uh, I've got the hard cover here and it's got nine stories and some uh miscellaneia and fragments in uh uh in the back of the book. Here's the uh the table of contents. Now, uh there was Roberty Howard wrote nine Steve Harrison stories.

[00:01:13]um only four of them were published in his lifetime, but uh they're not talked about too often and they're actually really really good books. Uh Steve Harrison, the reason I say that he was a pseudo private eye is throughout the stories he carries handcuffs, he wears a badge, he arrests people, he reports to the chief of police. Um, but he is uh talked about as preferring to work utterly alone. So, I don't know if he's a police detective or maybe that he has some kind of special arrangement with the police. Um, but he's he's an intriguing character and the stories are really good. They they read very much, you know, as you would think a Roberty Howard Conan or Roberty Howard story would read. It's full of It's full of intrigue and action and uh uh just the the ex exotic um presence that Roberty Howard usually put into his stories. Uh Steve Harrison's beat was the waterfront uh probably in New Orleans and he dealt with a lot of a lot of threats um a lot of exotic threats like uh voodoo, Asian, Middle Eastern and otherwise. Uh so it it just had the flavor that the Conan stories had. And Steve Harrison himself is described as a big man, abnormally strong with massive soldiers, cold blue eyes and thick black hair with a low broad forehead.

[00:02:50]Um Howard wrote that in his civilized garments uh his civilized garments could not conceal the almost savage muscularity of his frame. So he was very very Conanlike.

[00:03:04]Now, the reason I mean Howard has stated a couple of times as not liking the detective genre. As a matter of fact, he's he's he he's said that he despised the detective genre. He didn't read it and he didn't enjoy writing them for the most part. So, the reason he started writing detective detective stories was um the the Weird Tales market started drying up. payments were very slow and uh Howard was having a tough time, you know, writing and sending his stories out on his own. So, he uh he hired a a literary agent by the name of Otis Adelberg Klene, who was a writer himself, but that took a lot of the onus off uh Bob uh having to send out his own stuff. And uh Klene was also able to see what was working in the market and what wasn't working in the market. And at the time detective v fiction was very very popular. So he suggested to uh to Howard that he start writing detective fiction uh because the market was there for it.

[00:04:13]And Howard admitted that the genre isn't was entirely new to him and that Klein was a big help in teaching him detective story writing. So his the first story that he uh he sold for Howard was a story called either talons in the dark was the Howard uh title and it was retitled the black talons. Now that wasn't the Steve Harrison story but that was the first detective story that uh that Klein sold for Howard and also you know Howard's first detective story. And after that, then he created the the detective Steve Harrison. And as I said, it's he's called a private eye. In in in this book, he he's called a private eye.

[00:05:00]But uh as I said, that's kind of ambiguous. Is he a cop? Is he a private eye? Is he working somehow with the police on a on a nonofficial basis? I'm not too sure. But I I first became aware of Steve Harrison years ago in uh these Berkeley Medallion books. This is Skullface and this has the story um the stories Lord of the Dead and Names in the Black Book. So the Steve Harrison stories were out there to be found back in the day. I didn't I hadn't read all of them, but the the stories and the character did intrigue me. Um, and it wasn't until I picked this up, uh, a few months ago, uh, that I finally had a chance to read all the Steve Harrison stories. Now, as I said, they're exciting. One of the probably one of one of Howard's most reprinted and popular stories is uh, Graveyard Rats, which is a Steve Harrison story. And it's a a chilling and fast-paced story of Howard at his best. And as I said, it's one of his most reprinted stories, uh, you know, apart from the, uh, the Conan stories. So, Harrison himself was very capable in a fight. He was a two-fisted detective, and he probably preferred to get out of a jam with his fists, but he did carry a gun. He carried a 45 automatic, which he used on occasion.

[00:06:33]And uh keep in mind in in 1933 [snorts] the the detective story was just in its infancy. The the the hardboiled detective story was in its infancy. Uh Race Williams was on the stand uh in Black Mask magazine. There had been Dashel Hammet stories in there and probably other lesserk known detectives.

[00:06:57]So as I said, it was in its infancy. But the Howard stories can really hold their own with those hard-boiled stories. I mean, he kind of outspained Mickey Splain in many ways. Uh they're they're just uh they're gripping gripping stories. They're very very well done. I mean, some aspects of them might be a little dated because there is some racial stuff in some of them, but I mean, that's, you know, that's part for the course for a lot of pulp stories back in the day and and how, you know, Howard's stories. So, uh, you know, but they are worth the read. Uh, and I I wanted to talk about this for private eye July, even though, as I said, it's ambiguous whether he's a private eye or not. Um, but but I like to think that he is he does fit in that niche very well.

[00:07:51]Um, so the stories in here, I'll read you the titles of the stories. As I said, there was nine Steve Harrison stories. So, the stories that appear in this book are Lord of the Dead, The People of the Serpent, The Teeth of Doom, The Black Moon, The Voice of Death, The House of Suspicion, Names in the Black Book, The Silver Heel, and Graveyard Rats. So, this is uh it's a it's a slim volume. It's not it's not too thick. There's not a lot of stories in there, but it's well worth the money if you want to pick this up. Um, so yeah, Roberty Howard Foundation Press, they just they're doing such a great job in uh in reprinting these stories and bringing them out for the public. And they're they're easy to get. You can get them through the Roberty Howard Foundation Press site. I think even on Amazon, you can get them on Amazon.

[00:08:44]They're just fantastic books, beautifully done. And uh I do want to mention also that there is uh there's an ongoing appeal for uh for donations toward the Roberty Howard House and Museum. Uh I I think they're they're getting pretty close to their goal, but they can still use your help in uh and renovating the Howard home in in restoring it basically because the house is falling apart and it needs some pretty major major work on it. And it it it is considered a heritage home. So it has to it has to follow certain guidelines uh to to fit within that heritage designation. Uh but I I will put the link down below and if you're interested in donating and every little bit helps uh I will put the link down below and you can you can help out in that respect. But uh I don't think there's much more I wanted to say about Steve Harrison. Uh as I said, it's a great read. very very exciting. If you're into Conan into Al Borax, Salman Kaine, do yourself a favor and pick up the Steve Harrison case book or, you know, or one of these old paperbacks if you can find them out in the wild. Uh, you know, they're a lot of fun. And so that that's why, you know, I I wanted to feature him, you know, during July because he was a private eye and I call him the barbarian detective because it's almost like he is Conan in in current times. He's just a big man. He's a he's a he's a brawler and uh he gets into situations that are uh that uh you know would be worthy of Conan. Uh so yeah, that's that's all I wanted to talk about and uh you know, don't forget it's it is private eye July, so you know, read some private eye fiction. Uh, I'm trying to get as much reading in as I can and I'm sorry I haven't got as many videos up as I would have liked so far, but the month is still young and I hopefully I'll get a couple more up before July is done.

[00:10:45]So, I will talk to you very soon. You guys take care and keep reading.

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