Laughing Death

by Raoul Whitfield, Arthur Bowker (Illustrator), James Reasoner (Introduction)

Laughing Death is a story of gunfire and airships, of love and revenge. Sanford Greer (S.G.), Prosecuting Attorney of Center City, is put "on the spot" by five men. Gary Greer, who is the pilot in charge of the South Side Airport, starts out to get those five men and avenge his father's death.
Swift, written in dynamic prose, thrill piled on thrill, this book by Raoul Whitfield has the gusto of an Edgar Wallace, and something of the power of a Dashiell Hammett.
Quite possibly Raoul Whitfield's best novel, it has achieved legendary status due to its rarity, no doubt due to it appearing in desirable issues of Black Mask Magazine which also published serial installments of The Maltese Falcon and The Glass Key. Rarely have readers had the chance to read this superior series in its original form, until now. Includes an all-new introduction by James Reasoner.

250 pages, Paperback

Published July 30, 2021

About the author

Although born in New York, Raoul Fauconnier Whitfield's early life was shaped by his father's transfer to the Philippines where he led the privilege life as the dependent of a Territorial Government bureaucrat. Young Whitfield would later travel through China and Japan where his memory of Asia would prove to serve him well. Back in the States, the teenager aspired to motion pictures, where his rugged good looks graced the silent cinema. If it weren't for America's entry into the Great War in 1917 we might know him as an actor, but Whitfield enlisted in the Army and was initially assigned to the ambulance corps. Desiring action, he sought and won a commission as a pilot and saw duty on the German Front as a combat pilot. After the Armistice, Whitfield spurned his steel business-based family's desires, married his first wife Prudence and landed a job with the Pittsburgh Post as a reporter. Prudence encouraged his long held desires to write pulp fiction stories. His writing drew upon his childhood travels in the Far East (his 'Jo Gar, Island Detective' character was based in Manila) along with his more recent wartime exploits. He succeeded in selling stories for Boy's Life, War Stories and Battle Stories (under the pseudonym 'Temple Field') - but he's especially notable for his contributions to Black Mask, the creme of the pulps. His 'Crime Buster' Black Mask stories were so popular they were amalgamated into his first novel, Green Ice (published in 1930) earning the praise of none other than the genre master, Dashiell Hammett, with its hard-as-nails emphasis on action. Whitfield had a total of 9 books published during the depths of the Great Depression. The speed in which he ground out work was amazing but it also drew criticism; his lesser stories were spurned as hack work. Whitfield often wrote under the pseudonym, Ramon Dacolta, who ironically proved a heady rival in readership popularity. Many of his 1927-33 stories easily ranks with the best authors of pulp fiction. Whitfield's screen writing career began in earnest after his divorce from Prudence and relocated from Florida to Los Angeles in 1933. He landed a job as a writer for Paramount and on a whirlwind trip to New York City, met and married the wealthy and unstable Emily Davies Vanderbilt Thayer, with emphasis on the Vanderbilt. Life was good for a short period; the couple purchased a large ranch outside Las Vegas, Nevada and Whitfield's writing productivity slowed to a trickle. The Whitfield's marriage was wobbly, masked by partying. Emily experienced bouts of manic depression and the couple separated in early 1935. Her mental state was far more fragile than anyone had imagined, she committed suicide at the Nevada ranch that May. Whitfield was inconsolable over his wife's death and he was utterly destroyed. Contracting TB in his 40s he died at a military hospital in California in 1945.

Reviews

[Ira Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Initially serialized in Black Mask magazine in 1929, Laughing Death was never published in one volume as a complete novel until 2021. Author Raoul Whitfield, best known for his novel Green Ice, whips up a crackerjack tale told in classic pulp style. One of the best Black Mask entries I’ve read.