I corresponded with Clayton Matthews some years ago - it must've been in 2001 or 2002. He's an American novelist and short story writer who focused mainly on paperback markets. He started out in late 1950s writing short stories and then coming up with paperback novels, mostly in the crime genre, in the early 1960s. I notice now that Clayton Matthews died in 2004, quite shortly after my interview (damn, the Nummelin curse again!). His widow and long-time collaborator Patricia Matthews (who was once called "the queen of the romance paperbacks" or something along those lines) died in 2006. Had Clayton Matthews lived to see this day, he'd be 90.I wrote a short article based on his letter and published it in my fanzine, Pulp. I've posted the article in here. It's understandably in Finnish.
Nevertheless, late last night I came across his letter and the bibliography he sent alongside it. They were buries in a heap of books. I've scanned the bibliography and put it up in the Pulpetti Bibliographic Section. For some reason or another, Matthews didn't include his solo efforts in the bibliography, so I'm putting them as a separate post here. I've compiled the data from Hubin's bibliography and the Fictionmags Index and checking out Abebooks.
There's one curious item in Clayton Matthews's letter. There's a paperback novel called Las Vegas from 1974 (Pocket Books) that he wrote in collaboration with Arthur Moore, but there are also rumours that he himself was Arthur Moore. Some sources say Moore died in 1977, after penning some other paperbacks with Marilyn Granbeck and Don Hoyt and writing some Western paperbacks under his own name. I asked about this from Matthews and all he had to say was: "Yes, Arthur Moore is still alive and definitely did not die in 1977." I gather this means that he really was Arthur Moore and there was never a "real" Arthur Moore. So Matthews may have written all the books that have been published as Arthur Moore. But I can't say I know this for sure.
On the side (or on top, actually, since this got so long) the cover of the only book-length translation from Matthews, Dive into Death (1969) under the title Houkutteleva saalis (Manhattan 91, 1971). His first name is written wrong in the cover. Matthews told me he didn't know his book had been translated into Finnish. It's possible he got royalties only from the Swedish edition (or that the royalties included also possible publications in other Nordic countries). The book is very much okay, a hardboiled adventure yarn, and reminiscent of John MacDonald's Travis McGee books. Matthews had also some short stories translated in the Alfred Hitchcock mags in the seventies and they are okay, too, if nothing spectacular.
On the side, one of Matthews's early erotic novels. PS. Having written all this and posted stuff on various blogs, it just occurs to me to Google. And lo and behold, Clayton Matthews's bibliography, including even his erotic paperbacks, is up on Fantastic Fiction and Wikipedia!
