Cornwall’s mysterious Terrall alias Kyle alias Halliday

Criminal mischief has been rampant in the Northwest Corner. On paper.

Adding to our literary crime file — it already includes writers Georges Simenon of Lakeville (discussed in this space in the Jan. 24 issue) and Judson Philips of Sharon and East Canaan  (June 20) — is Robert Terrall of Cornwall, later Sharon and Salisbury.

A Montana native, Terrall (1914-2009) was more familiar under his several pseudonyms.  He wrote five Ben Gates mysteries as “Robert Kyle” (1958-1966) and three Harry Horne puzzlers as “John Gonzales” (1960-1963). He  also ghost-wrote 23 Mike Shayne private eye stories as “Brett Halliday” (1958-1976).

Terrall mostly talked about the latter in a program at the Cornwall Library in October 1979. I took notes.

“Dave Dresser originated the Shayne books” in 1939, Terrall explained, using the Halliday pseudonym.

“The critics weren’t overly enthused with the hero,” Terrall said, but the motion picture industry latched onto him for a series of low-budget movies starring Lloyd Nolan.

“Originally, Shayne had a wife, Phyllis, as a nod to Dashiell Hammett’s popular Thin Man,” Terrall said. “It was a husband-and-wife comedy. But Shayne’s wife, Phyllis, was terrible. She was always wrinkling her nose or stamping her tiny foot. She died inexplicably between books.

“Actually, the economics of the film deal killed her. Dresser sold the character for $1,000, and every time they made a new picture they’d pay him $1,000. If they used one of his book plots, they’d pay more. When the movie studio said it couldn’t use the team idea, he went home and killed her off. The books were picked up immediately after that.”

With the paperback explosion in the 1950s, wise-cracking Shayne became a staple of the Dell softcover line of books. By 1958, by Terrall’s account, Dresser developed writer’s block. Terrall took up the house name. Dennis Lynds and Ryerson Johnson also ghosted paperbacks and a dozen other writers produced novelettes for the digest “Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine” (337 issues, 1956-1985). 

 Terrall did his homework before starting the Shayne series. “In the world of fiction, there are two types of heroes. There are the strong, valiant Achilles and the wily, crafty Odysseus. It was a problem for mystery fiction writers to choose between them. Some used two characters, such as Rex Stout’s Nero Wolf and Archie Goodwin. Others fudged the issue. Sherlock Holmes, for example, often turns into an athlete in the last chapter. Where he got his muscles, nobody knows. Brain suddenly turns to brawn.”
Terrall saw that Dresser incorporated both qualities in one character. 

“I noted that Shayne never won a fight, but was frequently knocked down by hoodlums. I think the ordinary reader liked to feel he could win a fight, but realistically knew he would end up on the floor.”

Similarly, Shayne was said to be irresistible to women, yet he never much more than kissed his literary girlfriends. The red-headed private eye drank cognac by the gallon, but never got drunk. And though he earned huge fees, he still lived in the same, seedy Miami apartment, Terrall said.

With the series’ end (77 books in all), Terrall again wrote under his own name, titles such as “Sand Dollars” (1979) and “Wrap It In Flags” (1986).

Such was the life of a very flexible writer.

The columnist is senior associate editor of this newspaper.