Richard Scott Prather (September 9, 1921 – February 14, 2007) was an American mystery novelist, best known for creating the "Shell Scott" series. He also wrote under the pseudonyms David Knight and Douglas Ring.
Biography
Prather was born in Santa Ana, California and spent a year at Riverside Junior College (now Riverside Community College). He served in the United States Merchant Marine during World War II, 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. 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.
At Prather's death in 2007, he had completed but not published his last Shell Scott Mystery. His final novel, The Death Gods, was published October 2011, in print and ebook formats by Pendleton Artists, with permission of the Richard S. Prather Estate and Linda Pendleton.
Publisher
Prather had a disagreement with his publisher, Pocket Books, and sued them in 1975. He gave up writing for several years and grew avocados. In 1986, he returned with The Amber Effect. In 1987, Prather's penultimate book, Shellshock, was published in hardcover by Tor Books. He donated his papers to the Richard S. Prather Manuscript Collection at the University of Wyoming, in Laramie, Wyoming.
Personal life
Prather's wife, Tina Hager, died in April 2004 after 58 years of marriage.
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
Bibliography
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 — 1953
Ride a High Horse a.k.a. Too Many Crooks — 1953
Pattern for Panic — 1954
Strip for Murder — 1955
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, co-starring Marlowe's series character Chester Drum) — 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, Evan Hunter, Stanley Ellin, Erle Stanley Gardner, and others
Notes
References
Reilly, John M., editor. Twentieth Century Crime and Mystery Writers (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1980): entry Marquis Who’s Who in America (2002 edition): entry The Richard S. Prather / Shell Scott Website Archived - Last: 26 June 2012 - Visit: 26 June 2021