Charles Harding Wells (August 2, 1923 – October 10, 2004) was an American crime novelist and protégé of

Mickey Spillane Frank Morrison Spillane (; March 9, 1918July 17, 2006), better known as Mickey Spillane, was an American crime novelist, whose stories often feature his signature detective character, Mike Hammer (character), Mike Hammer. More than 225 million c ...

. He wrote two novels, 1953's ''Let the Night Cry'' and 1955's ''The Last Kill''.

Biography

Wells was born on August 2, 1923, in

Greenwood, Mississippi Greenwood is a city in and the county seat of Leflore County, Mississippi, United States, located at the eastern edge of the Mississippi Delta region, approximately 96 miles north of the state capital, Jackson, and 130 miles south of the riverp ...

, the son of Terrell Rush Wells and Emma Jones Harding Wells. He attended

Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...

Mississippi State College Mississippi State University for Agriculture and Applied Science, commonly known as Mississippi State University (MSU), is a public land-grant research university adjacent to Starkville, Mississippi. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Unive ...

, and

Tulane University Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private university, private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into ...

. Before beginning his writing career, he worked as a draftsman, drummer, and bank messenger, and was stationed in Europe during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, where he served in a field artillery unit and anti-aircraft battalion. He married Annie Lou Turner, a Greenwood librarian, in 1956. He lived in Greenwood until his death, on October 10, 2004, from heart failure.

Writing career

Growing up in Greenwood, Wells was a childhood friend of Mary Ann Pearce, who would later marry Mickey Spillane. Wells, Spillane, and fellow Spillane protégé

Earle Basinsky Earle Morris Basinsky, Jr. (1923–1963) was an American crime novelist and protégé of Mickey Spillane. He wrote two novels, 1955's ''The Big Steal'' and 1956's ''Death is a Cold, Keen Edge'', and five short stories. Biography Basinky was born ...

met while Spillane was stationed in Greenwood while serving in the Army. In the early 1950s, when Spillane himself had semi-retired from writing, Wells lived for a time in the Spillane household, where the elder writer took him under his wing. (Wells and fellow writer

Joe Gill Joseph P. Gill (July 13, 1919 – December 17, 2006)Social Security Death Inde ...

can be seen in a photograph in a 1952 ''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...

'' magazine article on Spillane.) After working with Spillane for a year, Wells published his first novel, ''Let the Night Cry'', at

New American Library The New American Library (also known as NAL) is an American publisher based in New York, founded in 1948. Its initial focus was affordable paperback reprints of classics and scholarly works as well as popular and pulp fiction, but it now publishe ...

's Signet Books imprint, which also produced Spillane's

Mike Hammer Michael Hammer or Mike Hammer may refer to: *Michael Armand Hammer (1955–2022), American philanthropist and businessman *Michael Martin Hammer (1948–2008), engineer and author *Mike Hammer (character), a fictional hard boiled detective ** ''Mick ...

paperbacks. As he did with several other young writers, Spillane supported Wells' work with advice, encouragement, and cover blurbs praising Wells on both of his novels. Wells himself freely acknowledged Spillane's influence, writing in ''The Last Kill'' that "it was Mickey himself who showed me how to pack guts, gore and hot, suspenseful action into a mystery yarn." ''Let the Night Cry'', published in 1953, is a crime thriller about an ex-convict set in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

, which a New York Times reviewer said that Wells described as "a city seemingly consisting entirely of bars and night clubs." An Oakland Tribune reviewer described the book as "crime, love and dope in a chili-hot potpourri in New Orleans' picturesque and wicked Latin Quarter." The book sold more than 400,000 copies. ''The Last Kill'', published in 1955, is set in

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

and follows a private eye who is trying to solve the murder of a friend who was involved in a million-dollar bank heist. August West, reviewing the novel on the blog Vintage Hardboiled Reads, noted that "what Wells did well is create a gloomy, drab, dark atmosphere for the novel. Very noir-ish. The whole story takes place in rainy, cold weather and mostly at night." The original cover illustrations of Wells' novels, both done by artist Robert Maguire, have been called some of "the most evocative and memorable of the period" by Lee Server, author of the ''Encyclopedia of Pulp Fiction Writers''. Critical appraisals of Wells' books were positive but not enthusiastic.

Bill Pronzini Bill Pronzini (born April 13, 1943) is an American writer of detective fiction. He is also an active anthologist, having compiled more than 100 collections, most of which focus on mystery, western, and science fiction short stories. Pronzini is ...

, in ''1001 Midnights: The Aficionado's Guide To Mystery and Detective Fiction'', called them "readable" but "Spillane-imitative." The ''New York Times Book Review'' called the hero of ''The Last Kill'' "the year's most incompetent private detective" but said the book would appeal to "addicts of Spillane." Even Wells' publisher had mixed feelings about his literary quality, if not his marketability: New American Library owner

Victor Weybright Victor Weybright (1903-1978) was an American writer and publisher. He was educated at Hull House and the University of Chicago. During World War II he worked in London for the United States Office of War Information. After the war Weybright was b ...

overturned the original rejection of the novel, but in the same letter authorizing its publication, he called the book "God-awful trash, without Spillane's vibration and without plausible motivation, but abounding in retribution, lust, violence, booze, in the lower depths of New York and environs." Wells did not publish again after ''The Last Kill''. Server states that "apparently even Mickey lost track of him."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wells, Charlie 1923 births 2004 deaths 20th-century American novelists American crime fiction writers American male novelists Writers from Mississippi Novelists from Mississippi 20th-century American male writers Pulp fiction writers United States Army personnel of World War II