Norbert Harrison Davis (April 18, 1909 - July 28, 1949) was an American

crime fiction Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, ...

author. Norbert Davis was born in Morrison,

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...

, where he grew up. At the end of the 1920s his family moved to Southern California and by the end of 1934 he was to receive his law degree from Stanford University but never bothered to take the bar exam. He started writing short stories for '' Black Mask'' in 1932 and lived in the

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

area. He also contributed to
Dime Detective
',

',

', '' Argosy'', and ''

The Saturday Evening Post ''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was issued weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, then every two weeks until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely ...

''. From 1943 he published the detective novels ''The Mouse in the Mountain'' (Morrow 1943) (also published in paperback under the titles ''Rendezvous with Fear'' and ''Dead Little Rich Girl''), ''Sally's in the Alley'' (Morrow 1943), ''Oh, Murderer Mine'' (Quinn Publishing 1946), all three novels featuring Doan, a private investigator, and Carstairs, a

Great Dane The Great Dane is a large sized dog breed originating from Germany. The Great Dane descends from hunting dogs from the Middle Ages used to hunt wild boar and deer, and as guardians of German nobility. It is one of the largest breeds in the worl ...

.Server, Lee (2002)
''Encyclopedia of Pulp Fiction Writers''
pp. 77-79. Facts on File, Inc. Retrieved 28 April 2014. His ''Murder Picks the Jury'' (Samuel Curl 1947) was written in collaboration with W. T. Ballard under the authorship 'Harrison Hunt'. A complete collection of his Max Latin stories from ''Dime Detective'' called ''The Complete Cases of Max Latin'' was published in 2014 by Altus Press. A complete collection of his Doan and Carstairs stories ''Doan and Carstairs: Their Complete Cases'' was published by Altus Press in 2016. 'The Adventures of Max Latin' was put out by Mysterious Press in 1988. Davis's writing was greatly admired by

Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is con ...

. Davis died on July 28, 1949, an apparent suicide following a diagnosis of cancer.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Davis, Norbert 1909 births 1949 deaths 20th-century American novelists American male novelists American mystery writers People from Morrison, Illinois Stanford Law School alumni Novelists from Illinois 20th-century American male writers 1949 suicides Suicides in Massachusetts Suicides by carbon monoxide poisoning

See also

References