Harold Q. Masur

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Harold Q. Masur (born January 29, 1909 in New York , † September 16, 2005 in Boca Raton , Florida ) was an American lawyer and writer.

Life

Masur studied law at the School of Law ( University of New York ) and then started working in a law firm. From there he enlisted in the US Air Force in 1942 and stayed there throughout World War II .

After the war ended, Masur returned to New York and began working as a lawyer. At the same time he began to write; He made his successful debut in 1947 with his novel Burry me deep . In addition to his own name, he also used the pseudonyms Edward James and Guy Fleming .

Masur was a member of the Mystery Writers of America (MWA) writers' association and was its president between 1973 and 1974.

Harold Q. Masur died at the age of 96 on September 16, 2005 in Boca Raton, where he found his final resting place.

reception

Masur's first literary attempts were narratives, which soon also various pulp magazines such as "Argosy", "Popular Detective", "Detective Story Magazine" and the like. a. published. He was able to achieve his greatest success with his protagonist "Scott Jordan", a lawyer from New York who also works there as a private detective. It seems that quite a bit of autobiography went into this role, with the "cases" certainly all being fantasy.
The Scott Jordan series includes nine novels and a multi-story anthology. In 1981 another novel about Scott Jordan was published, but it was very different from the previous series and had little more than the same name. The character Scott Jordan can best be compared to Alder Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason .

Works (selection)

  • Scott Jordan cycle
  1. Scott and the blonde. Detective novel ("Burry me deep", 1947). Goldmann, Munich 1966.
  2. Scott and the fat one. Detective novel ("Suddenly a corpse", 1949). Goldmann, Munich 1966.
  3. Scott and the Sliders. Detective novel ("The big money", 1954). Goldmann, Munich 1966.
  4. Scott and the laughing widows. Detective novel ("You can't live forever", 1951). Goldmann, Munich 1966.
  5. Scott in the cauldron. Detective novel ("The last gamble", 1958). Goldmann, Munich 1966.
  6. Scott and the lovely countess. Detective novel ("So rich, so lovely and so dead", 1952). Goldmann, Munich 1967.
  7. Scott suspected of murder. Detective novel ("Tall, dark and deadly", 1956). Goldmann, Munich 1967.
  8. Scott in the spotlight. Detective novel ("The legacy lenders", 1967). Goldmann, Munich 1967.
  9. Scott and the wealthy client. Detective novel ("Make a killing", 1964). Goldmann, Munich 1967.
  • The name is Jordan. Stories . Pyramid Books, New York 1962.
  • Strange clients. Detective novel ("Send another hearse", 1960). Scherzverlag, Stuttgart 1961 (The black crime novels; 148).
  • The attorney . Random House, New York 1973, ISBN 0-394-46517-2 .
  • The broker . St. Martin's Press, New York 1981, ISBN 0-312-10589-4 .
  • The mourning after. A Scott Jordan novel of suspense . St. Martin's Press, New York 1981, ISBN 0-312-54953-9 .

literature

  • Armin Arnold (Ed.): Reclams Kriminalromanführer . Reclam, Stuttgart 1978, ISBN 3-15-010278-2 , p. 252.
  • Otto Penzler: Detectionary. A biographical dictionary of leading characters in detective and mystery fiction . Overlook Press, Woodstock, NY 1977, ISBN 0-87951-041-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ according to Armin Arnold 1912
personal data
SURNAME Masur, Harold Q.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American lawyer and writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 29, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH new York
DATE OF DEATH September 16, 2005
Place of death Boca Raton , Florida