Robert Leslie Bellem

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There is no question that Robert Leslie Bellem deserves his place in hardboiled history. The only question is what that place should be. In the 1930s and 40s he churned out an estimated 3000 short stories in all genres, sometimes writing and selling a million words a year. After the pulp era ended he switched to television, writing for shows such as Perry Mason and 77 Sunset Script.

Although Bellem wrote horror and science fiction as well as mysteries, it's his Dan Turner stories that are remembered today. Turner, the "Hollywood Detective", starred in a seemingly endless stream of screwball stories in Spicy Detective Magazine and later graduated to his own mag, Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective - each issue of which featured as many as a half dozen Turner stories. In Bellem's hands, Turner spoke a bizarre brand of English that could baffle and bamboozle all but the best brains. Turner raised slang to a hilarious art form; he didn't walk the walk or talk the talk. He "ankled" or "bumped gums" or "chinned". James Ellroy's Danny Getchell owes a lot to Turner, as does Quentin Tarantino.

These stories never break down and admit they're parodies, however. Most satire lets you in on the joke with a wink and a nod (if not a stiff elbow to the ribs), but Bellem's stories, however hysterical, play it straight. If only stumbling over dead bodies, getting hit on the head and shot at, etc., were this much fun in real life...