Richard Scott Prather was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 mystery

Mystery fiction

Mystery fiction is a loosely-defined term.1.It is often used as a synonym for detective fiction or crime fiction— in other words a novel or short story in which a detective investigates and solves a crime mystery. Sometimes mystery books are nonfiction...

 novelist, best known for creating the "Shell Scott

Shell Scott

Shell Scott was the best-known creation of fiction writer Richard S. Prather. A Southern California private eye, 6-foot-2 ex-marine, he was featured in three dozen novels published over a span of nearly 40 years...

" series. He also wrote under the pseudonyms David Knight and Douglas Ring.

Early life and career

Prather was born in Santa Ana, California

Santa Ana, California

Santa Ana is the county seat and second most populous city in Orange County, California, and with a population of 324,528 at the 2010 census, Santa Ana is the 57th-most populous city in the United States....

 and spent a year at Riverside Junior College (now Riverside Community College

Riverside Community College

Riverside City College, or RCC, is a community college located in Riverside, California, United States. The college is part of the Riverside Community College District, as well as the larger California Community Colleges System.-History:...

). He served in the United States Merchant Marine

United States Merchant Marine

The United States Merchant Marine refers to the fleet of U.S. civilian-owned merchant vessels, operated by either the government or the private sector, that engage in commerce or transportation of goods and services in and out of the navigable waters of the United States. The Merchant Marine is...

 during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, from 1942 through the end of the war in 1945. That year he married Tina Hager and began working as a civilian chief clerk of surplus property at March Air Force Base in Riverside, California

Riverside, California

Riverside is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, and the county seat of the eponymous county. Named for its location beside the Santa Ana River, it is the largest city in the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metropolitan area of Southern California, 4th largest inland California...

. He left that job to become a full-time writer in 1949. The first Shell Scott mystery, "Case of the Vanishing Beauty" was published in 1950. It would be the start of a long series that numbered more than three dozen titles featuring the Shell Scott character

Shell Scott

Shell Scott was the best-known creation of fiction writer Richard S. Prather. A Southern California private eye, 6-foot-2 ex-marine, he was featured in three dozen novels published over a span of nearly 40 years...

.

Later career

Prather had a disagreement with his publisher Pocket Books

Pocket Books

Pocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books.- History :Pocket produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in America in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing industry...

 and sued them in 1975. He gave up writing for several years and grew avocado

Avocado

The avocado is a tree native to Central Mexico, classified in the flowering plant family Lauraceae along with cinnamon, camphor and bay laurel...

s. 1986 he returned with The Amber Effect. Prather's final book, Shellshock, was published in hardcover in 1987 by Tor Books

Tor Books

Tor Books is one of two imprints of Tom Doherty Associates LLC, based in New York City. It is noted for its science fiction and fantasy titles. Tom Doherty Associates also publishes mainstream fiction, mystery, and occasional military history titles under its Forge imprint. The company was founded...

. He donated his papers to the Richard S. Prather Manuscript Collection at the University of Wyoming

University of Wyoming

The University of Wyoming is a land-grant university located in Laramie, Wyoming, situated on Wyoming's high Laramie Plains, at an elevation of 7,200 feet , between the Laramie and Snowy Range mountains. It is known as UW to people close to the university...

, in Laramie, Wyoming

Laramie, Wyoming

Laramie is a city in and the county seat of Albany County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 30,816 at the . Located on the Laramie River in southeastern Wyoming, the city is west of Cheyenne, at the junction of Interstate 80 and U.S. Route 287....

.

At the time of Prather's death, he had his last unpublished Shell Scott Mystery complete manuscript. It was published October 2011, in print and ebook formats by Pendleton Artists, with permission of the Richard S. Prather Estate and Linda Pendleton.

Awards and honors

• Private Eye Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award (1986)
• Twice served on the Board of Directors of the Mystery Writers of America
  Mystery Writers of America
  Mystery Writers of America is an organization for mystery writers, based in New York.The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday....
  
  .

Shell Scott novels

• Case of the Vanishing Beauty — 1950
• Bodies in Bedlam — 1951
• Everybody Had a Gun — 1951
• Find This Woman — 1951
• Dagger of Flesh — 1952
• Darling, It's Death — 1952
• Way of a Wanton — 1952
• Always Leave 'em Dying — 1954
• Pattern for Panic — 1954
• Ride a High Horse a.k.a. Too Many Crooks —1956
• Strip for Murder — 1956
• The Wailing Frail — 1956
• The Deadly Darling — 1957
• Have Gat - Will Travel (short stories) — 1957
• Three's a Shroud (novelettes) — 1957
• The Scrambled Yeggs (published in 1952 as Pattern for Murder under pseudonym "David Knight") — 1958
• Slab Happy — 1958
• Take a Murder, Darling — 1958
• Over Her Dear Body — 1959
• Double in Trouble (with Stephen Marlowe) — 1959
• Dance with the Dead — 1960
• Dig That Crazy Grave — 1961
• Shell Scott's Seven Slaughters (short stories) — 1961
• Kill the Clown — 1962
• Dead Heat — 1963
• The Cockeyed Corpse — 1964
• Joker in the Deck — 1964
• The Trojan Hearse — 1964
• Dead Man's Walk — 1965
• Kill Him Twice — 1965
• The Meandering Corpse — 1965
• The Kubla Khan Caper — 1966
• Gat Heat — 1967
• The Cheim Manuscript — 1969
• Kill Me Tomorrow — 1969
• The Shell Scott Sampler (short stories) — 1969
• Dead-Bang — 1971
• The Sweet Ride — 1972
• The Sure Thing — 1975
• The Amber Effect — 1986
• Shellshock — 1987
• The Death Gods - 2011

Other novels

• Lie Down, Killer — 1952
• The Peddler — 1963 (published in 1952 under pseudonym "Douglas Ring")
• The Peddler - 2006 by Hard Case Crime

As David Knight

• Pattern for Murder — 1952 (published in 1958 as The Scrambled Yeggs under Prather's name)
• Dragnet: Case No. 561 — 1956

As Douglas Ring

• The Peddler — 1952 (published in 1963 under Prather's name)

As Editor

• The Comfortable Coffin, stories by Ellery Queen
  Ellery Queen
  Ellery Queen is both a fictional character and a pseudonym used by two American cousins from Brooklyn, New York: Daniel Nathan, alias Frederic Dannay and Manford Lepofsky, alias Manfred Bennington Lee , to write, edit, and anthologize detective fiction.The fictional Ellery Queen created by...
  
  , Evan Hunter
  Evan Hunter
  Evan Hunter was an American author and screenwriter. Born Salvatore Albert Lombino, he legally adopted the name Evan Hunter in 1952...
  
  , Stanley Ellin
  Stanley Ellin
  Stanley Bernard Ellin was an American mystery writer. Ellin was born in Brooklyn, New York. He garnered a love for reading at a young age with an interest in works by the likes of Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling, and Edgar Allan Poe. Ellin was educated at Brooklyn College and received a B.A. in 1936...
  
  , Erle Stanley Gardner
  Erle Stanley Gardner
  Erle Stanley Gardner was an American lawyer and author of detective stories, best known for the Perry Mason series, he also published under the pseudonyms A.A. Fair, Kyle Corning, Charles M. Green, Carleton Kendrake, Charles J...
  
  , and others

External links

• Richard S. Prather at the Internet Book List