Sean Gregory's serial hero Mack Regan

I'm sure not many of you have heard of Sean Gregory, not even by his real name, Harry Hossent. He started out in the early 1950s writing cheap crime hardbacks for Hamilton under the house name Jeff Bogar. He went on to write more thrillers in the sixties under his real name. He seems to have dropped out of the publishing business in the early seventies.

As by Sean Gregory he wrote some short paperbacks for the Tit-Bits Books paperback series in the early 1950s. (At least I think they were paperbacks, but I'm not 100 % certain. Hope someone can confirm this. I believe the books accompanied the issues of the Tit-Bits magazine.) His stories in that series were for some reason or another translated in Finnish in a paperback series called Max Strong (who was an Australian series character, but that's another story altogether). I've browsed through the three stories, here's a lowdown.

All the stories came out originally in 1954. The hero, appearing in all three stories, is one Mack (short for Mackenzie) Regan. He's a Hollywood PR agent, but in what I believe was the first story in the series, Murder Bangs a Big Drum, he's still trying make his living in Ohio. He gets a phone call from a Hollywood producer, who asks Regan to come down to Hollywood to prevent a young actor's name appearing in headlines. Reason: he's disappeared. It all ties down to a hazy union job. In Murder Makes the Corpse Regan is asked to write a book on an undertaker firm. He agrees, but finds out soon there's something fishy about the outfit. Murder Is Too Permanent finds Regan working for a gangster called Ricky Vescino. He wants Regan to make way for his beautiful wife and escort her into high society, but at the same time his own life is being threatened as someone wants to blow up his car.

The stories are old-fashioned private eye fun, nothing more, but nothing less, though. As I didn't really read the stories, I can't say how well they hold up, but if you come across them, I'll advise to take a look. Seems, though, that the Tit-Bits Books are hard to come by.

One more thing: Harry Hossent-Sean Gregory came up with some strange names for his stories. This seems a staple in this kind of private eye stuff. There are Bats Moloney, Lex Hupner, Alvar Domonici, Rafe Engels, Bull Gregow and Jed Yurfy, and there's also a heavy called Griff, which is a nod to a house name of British mushroom jungle publishers.

Photos accompanying the post are the covers of the Finnish editions of Sean Gregory's stories.

Frank Struan's other stories from Tit-Bits Books

Remember I wrote about Frank Struan's private eye booklet Murder's So Unpleasant? It was published in the Tit-Bits Books paperback series in 1954 and translated in Finnish some ten years later. The story features one Johnny July, and I got to thinking he might warrant an entry in the Thrilling Detective site, but I've now browsed through (note: not read!) Frank Struan's other translated titles and none have Johnny July in the lead. Of course there's a possibility that Struan has more stories that were not translated in Finnish.

Struan has another series character, though. His stories Tunnel of Nightmare, Ruthless Enemy and Fall Guy, all from Tit-Bits Books and from 1954, are spy stories about a British counter-spy called Fabian and his bosses called Delmer and Johnstone. The best of the bunch is probably Tunnel of Nightmare (Painajaistunneli, see the photo) in the beginning of which Fabian wakes up from the seedy side streets of the London port and seems to have lost his memory. Ruthless Enemy is about an East-European communist leader whom other commies want to kill. Fabian is set to protect him. I didn't really make any notes on Fall Guy, so I can't say anything about that.

There was still another piece by Struan in Finnish. The story The Girl from the Sea (yet another from 1954)
is about, well, a girl from the sea. A guy is swimming by the sea and notices a young woman is trying to escape from a ship that's anchored some hundred meters from the shore. It all has to do with the English nuclear weapons.

I'm a private eye man myself, so these spy stories didn't interest me as much. The stories seem competent enough, but they are no hidden gems.

I'm finally getting my Pulpografia Britannica - book on British crime pulpsters and paperbackers - together. It should be out in June. Don't know for sure yet, still got tons to do. I'll post some stuff on the writers therein in the blog for some days now.