Roger TorreyRoger Torrey (1901-1946), sometimes identified as Roger Denzel Torrey, was an American pulp writer best known for hardboiled crime and detective fiction. He published extensively in the detective magazines of the 1930s and 1940s, including Black Mask where his tough, fast-moving stories placed him among the writers who helped define the private-eye and hardboiled tradition. The Thrilling Detective site describes him as one of the "Black Mask Boys" and notes that, despite writing only one novel, he produced a substantial body of pulp crime fiction that has remained under-reprinted and under-recognised.Torrey's fiction is rooted in the working materials of Depression-era crime writing: private detectives, grifters, crooked police, cheap rooms, violence, rackets, sex, liquor, money, and men trying to survive in dirty systems. 42 Days for Murder, first published in 1938, is his only novel and features Shean Connell, a nightclub pianist turned private detective operating in a Reno where divorce law, gambling, vice, and organised crime all cross paths. For readers of classic hardboiled fiction, Black Mask writers, pulp private eyes, noir, and neglected American crime novels, Torrey is a strong rediscovery. Read More Read Less