Richard S. Prather


Richard Scott Prather 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. 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
  • Twice served on the board of directors of the Mystery Writers of America

    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
  • Have Gat - Will Travel — 1957
  • Three's a Shroud — 1957
  • The Scrambled Yeggs — 1958
  • Slab Happy — 1958
  • Take a Murder, Darling — 1958
  • Over Her Dear Body — 1959
  • Double in Trouble — 1959
  • Dance with the Dead — 1960
  • Dig That Crazy Grave — 1961
  • Shell Scott's Seven Slaughters — 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 — 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

    Novellas

  • The Sleeper Caper — 2009
As David Knight
  • Pattern for Murder — 1952
  • Dragnet: Case No. 561 — 1956
As Douglas Ring