Tahara. Tahara was created by Harold M. Sherman and appeared in the four volume "Tahara Adventure Series" beginning with Tahara, Boy King of the Desert (1933) and appearing in three more books that year. One of the wilder and more entertaining juvenile adventure series, the Tahara books detail the exploits of "Dick" (haven't found his last name yet, but I'm working on it), who while adventuring in the Sahara discovers a lost race of blue-eyed Aryans at a Stone Age level of civilization living in a city. He befriends them, and a group of treehouse-dwelling missing link ape-men, and discovers that he's the reincarnation of the lost race's prime mystic, "Tahara." With a couple of members of each group and the Indian mystic Mahatma Sikandar he journeys into the jungles of Africa, where he has a Haggardesque quest involving the lost treasures of King Solomon and the lost lore of Queen of Sheba. From there, as his mental powers grow, Tahara and his friends go to India, led by Mahatma Sikandar. They go to Sikandar's home, a lost city high in the Himalayas, where the Hindu gods manifest themselves to their priests and various mystics and monks. They battle an advanced, evil mystic there (an agent of Kali-ma), make use of crystal scrying, and defy and break one of Kali-ma's curses. Then, finally, Tahara (now a fully functioning adept, with extensive mental powers, including telepathy) and his retinue go to Mexico, where Tahara intends to claim his destiny. Tahara fulfills the prophesies about his fate in battles with immortals from a hidden city in the Yucatan jungles to the ruins of an Aztec fortress. All in all, great fun--much more than you'd expect from this genre.

Tailspin Tommy. Tailspin Tommy was created by Glen Chaffin, a scriptwriter, and Hal Forrest, a cartoonist, and debuted on 14 May 1928, running through 1942, with two appearances in pulp magazines. The strip was about Tailspin Tommy Tomkins, an all-American teenager who is infatuated with airplanes. (These were the years when the public interest with airplanes and pilots was at its peak, and comic strips about pilots, like Scorchy Smith and Smiling Jack, were most popular). Tommy earned his pilot's license and went to work for Three-Point Airlines, a small airline based in Texas. Working with him there were Skeets Milligan, the wiseacre mechanic, and perky fellow pilot Betty Lou Barnes, whose rich uncle later helped her take over the company. Initially their exploits were "realistic," involving matters such as delivering medical supplies and ordinary cargo and helping rescue trapped workers during floods and forest fires. In the Sunday pages, however, Tailspin Tommy and his two friends fought more exotic foes, discovering lost civilizations in the Andes, leading expeditions to the South Pole, finding volcano-god-worshiping civilizations in the South Seas, and rescuing ships from the Sargasso Sea. In the mid to late 1930s Hal Forrest took over the strip all by himself and made the strip even more gloriously pulpish, with the result that the enemies became death-ray-wielding mad scientists, air pirates, phantom planes piloted by skeletons, spies stealing the plans for stratospheric airplanes, and so on.

Tailspin Tommy
Another excellent site from the Craig Holloway.

Tam O' The Scoots. Tam was created by Edgar Wallace and debuted in Everybody's Magazine in its November 1917 issue; he appeared there through 1919. Tam is a short, gangly red-head, a Scotsman (speaking in a stereotypical Scots burr) who was, before the war, a car mechanic. He was a pacifist, before the war, and when war came he refused military service, going from job to job. Purely by chance he became a mechanic at an aerodrome, and soon enough he applied for and became a pilot and a sergeant. Soon after that he displayed a great talent for killing enemy pilots. His personality is not entirely savory, for he is a mooch and scrounge. He's also a big fan of dime novels, so we must forgive him his penury. He kills and kills and kills, and then falls in love with Vera Laramore, a wealthy American society woman in France to help the wounded by driving an ambulance. The two fall in love and end up marrying.

Tarcaneta. Tarcaneta appeared in "Tarcaneta" (Tarzaneta), a strip in Strip, a Yugoslav magazine which began publication in 1935. Tarzaneta--I mean, Tarcaneta was created by the Russian artist Nikola Navojev; she was a "half-naked, half-wild girl from the jungle," a distaff version of Lord Greystoke.

Tarrant, Trevis. Trevis Tarrant was created by C. Daly King and appeared in The Curious Mr. Tarrant (1935). Tarrant is an annoying dilettante detective who takes on seemingly supernatural crimes and discovers the rational explanations for them. In one case, however, "The Episode of the Final Bargain," Tarrant's female assistant is psychically attacked, and Tarrant is forced to release his astral body in order to save her.

Tarzan. I don't really need to go into any depth about Tarzan, Lord Greystoke, do I? Raised in the jungle by apes, white lord of the jungle, all that? I'm not going to write anything else; instead, I'm going to direct you to this site:

The Dream Vaults of Opar
A good site on ERB and Tarzan. Not, however, as good as

Tarzan of the Internet
This is the best site on Lord Greystoke that I've found, and it's really quite good. There's no need for me to say anything about Tarzan--they've already done it better than I ever could.

Taverner, Dr. Dr. Taverner was created by Dion Fortune and appeared in The Secrets of Dr. Taverner (1926), a collection of short stories.  Taverner is a cynical, somewhat pompous, very aggravating man who happens to be a very expert and competent psychic physician as well as a kind of occult detective. He runs a nursing home for those who are afflicted by various phenomena not explicable by other means, and is assisted by the narrator, Dr. Rhodes, a man who sought help after leaving the Army for his shattered nerves. Taverner, despite his unsociable ways, is actually quite good at what he does. In addition to being a good doctor, he has various psychic abilities that he can call upon to help him on cases. He can put himself in a trance and examine the “Akashic Records…the subconscious mind of the human race,” so that he can trace the thoughts and memories of any human who ever lived. Taverner can see psychic entities and Presences. He can examine individuals’ past lives, and can use horoscopes (of his own casting) to see what sort of karmic debt an individual has incurred. And, finally, Taverner is the senior member of an occult “Lodge,” whose brotherhood is dedicated to good. Taverner and his lodge are in a perpetual duel with the evil “Black Lodge.”

Interestingly, one of Taverner’s stories included the psychic revenge sought on a British officer who abandoned his native mistress when he left India. The mistress was pregnant by the officer, was shunned by her family, and died of shame. The officer comes out of the story humiliated and looking very bad. Considering when this story was written, it has a surprisingly progressive and modern view. Bart Lidofsky, former VP of the Northeast Federation of the Theosophical Society in America, read this entry and contributed the following:

About your comment about Dr. Taverner having a surprisingly progressive and modern view; the Lodge that Dr. Taverner belonged to was modeled after the Theosophical Society, which DID have that attitude on racial relations (their first object is "To form a nucleus of the Brotherhood of Humanity without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or color".) They were instrumental in ending the caste system in India, and strongly campaigned for racial, sexual, and religious equality around the world.

Teddy. Teddy was created by Howard Garis (best get used to that name) and appeared in the seven-book "Teddy Books" series, which began in 1936 with Teddy and the Mystery Dog and continued through 1941. About all I've been able to find about "Teddy" was that he worked in a pet store and solved mysteries involving a dog, a monkey, a cat, a parrot, a pony, a deer, and a goat. Go figure. Some folks will read anything, I guess.

Temple, Paul. Paul Temple was created by Francis Durbridge and appeared in nine novels as well as various British radio and tv shows and a newspaper comic strip and a movie, all beginning with Send for Paul Temple (1938). Temple was a British novelist of the genteel classes, and his wife Steve was a journalist. Together, they fought crime.

Terramarear. I've found contradictory information on "Terramarear." Some references call it a 1930s Brazilian version of Tarzan. It was also a publisher of science fiction in Brazil in the Thirties, and was responsible for a successful and famous (in Brazil) edition of the Burroughs Tarzan books. So perhaps the former references got their information wrong?

Tharn. Tharn was created by Howard Browne and appeared in two series of stories in Amazing beginning in 1942; these stories were collected as Warrior of the Dawn (1943) and The Return of Tharn (1948). Tharn was a good-natured Cro-Magnon who fought for good and right at the dawn of time, 20,000 years ago or more. Tharn operates around the Mediterranean and encounters a barbarian society more advanced than most other cultures of that time.

Thatcher, Bobby. Bobby Thatcher debuted in an eponymous comic strip, created by George Storm and lasting from 1927 through 1937. "Bobby Thatcher, a bright lad of fourteen, lives on a farm near the village of Lakeview. He is the ward of Jed Flint and lives with Flint and his housekeeper. Since the death of Mrs. Flint, who was kind to him, Bobby no longer attends school and his life is one of increasing hardship." These hardships included Jed Flint, a cruel father who treated Bobby badly and forced Bobby to run away. There were also tommy-gun-wielding gangsters, bootleggers, crime in the big city, crime out West, air pirates, and the like. Bobby is helped by his girlfriends, Lulu Bowers and Marge Hall, and by the other boys in his gang, Ulysses "Tubby" Butler, Elmer Bowers, and Peewee Nimmo. While at sea Bobby is helped by the grizzled sea hand Hurricane Bill in the battle with the evil Captain Bottlejohn for buried treasure.

Thingmaster, Mike. Mike Thingmaster was created by "Jim Dollar," aka the Russian writer Marietta Shaginian, and appeared in Mess Mend, ili Yanki v Petrograde (Mess Mend, Yankees in Petrograd, 1923), Laurie Lane, Metalworker (1924), and The Road to Baghdad (1925). Shaginian was taken up with the Pinkertonovshchina, or the "Pinkerton craze," the Soviet enthusiasm for cheap American dime novels and detective fiction, many of which were supposedly based on the stories of Allan Pinkerton's work. Shaginian, a patriotic Soviet, decided to make a krasnyi Pinkerton, or a Soviet version of Allan Pinkerton/Nick Carter, and Mike Thingmaster was the result.

Thingmaster is a "cheerful blue-eyed, red-bearded giant of a man," a wonderworker with wood: "Michael Thingmaster, from the wood-working factory in Middletown. He's a wood-turner, a carpenter, a cabinet-maker--anything you want, he can be it: Mike's the smartest one of all our fellow-workers in America." Thingmaster is also an amateur sleuth, and a good one. More than that, though, he is a revolutionary, in the purest, Communist sense. Mike is pro-worker and pro-proletariat, and to help the workers and protect them from the greedhead capitalist running dog fascist scum, he has formed "Mess-Mend," a secret international alliance of workers who are dedicated to cleaning up the mess left by capitalism and fascism. Mess-Mend's trademark is a tiny double "m" stamped on the products that Mess-Mend's members make. (The passwords are "Mess-Mend" and "Mend-Mess," in case anyone ever asks you to prove your membership) Thingmaster, in Mess Mend (the only one of Shaginian's Thingmaster trilogy which has been translated into English), leads Mess-Mend against an international conspiracy of capitalist pigs led by the American multi-millionaire Jack Kressling and his malign henchman, Gregorio Cice. Kressling is attempting to overthrow the then-new Communist government of Soviet Russia and to put in place a corrupt crew of capitalist White Russian Guardists who will control a new Russian monarchy and give Kressling virtually complete control of all (capitalist, naturally) business ventures in Russia. Mike Thingmaster and Mess-Mend eventually manage to defeat Kressling et al, despite the capitalists' possession of advanced planes and bombs.

Thinking Machine. The Thinking Machine, otherwise known as Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, Ph.D., LL.D., F.R.S., M.D. and M.D.S., was created by Jacques Futrelle. Futrelle (1875-1912) was an American author, newspaperman, and theatrical manager; although he wrote other stories besides those involving the Thinking Machine, he's best known for that character and for having gone down with the Titanic. The Thinking Machine stories, 48 in all, appeared in newspapers, Sunday magazine sections, The Popular Magazine, and of course books: The Thinking Machine (1907) and The Thinking Machine on the Case (1908); his first appearance was in a six-part story in the Boston American starting on October 30, 1905.

Professor Van Dusen, a native Bostonian, is rather unique-looking. He is a small, thin man with a very big head and a bulbous, protruding forehead; his hat size is 8, and beneath his hat peeks straw-colored hair. His darting, intelligent eyes are blue, and sit behind thick glasses. "The face was white with the pallor of the student; his mouth was a bloodless slit." His looks are meaningless, however, for his intellect is what is important about him. He is the world's foremost scientist and logician, nicknamed "the Thinking Machine" by an angered Russian chessmaster, a world champion who had been defeated in chess by Van Dusen after the Professor had taken instruction for only one day. Van Dusen sequesters himself in his personal laboratory for weeks on end, working hour after hour and rarely coming back to Earth, his mind venturing into realms that mere mortals can know nothing of. He is nominally employed by an unnamed college in the Boston area (read: Harvard).

Naturally, someone this bright cannot be bothered with petty interruptions, so when Hutchinson Hatch, one of Van Dusen's friends (if the Professor can be said to have any), interrupts his routine, the Professor is highly irritated. The Professor's distemper is one of his hallmarks; he is permanently irascible and foul-tempered. Hatch is a newspaper reporter, "lean, wiry, hard as nails," and he is usually the one to bring "problems" (read: unsolved crimes) to Van Dusen's attention. Inevitably the Professor is interested in the problems, although his foul mood never lifts, and he relentlessly grills Hatch for information--"I want facts. Facts," the Professor snaps--and sends Hatch out to gather more information. Once those bits of knowledge are presented to Van Dusen, he thinks intently, then orders the police, in the form of Detectives Mallory and Cunningham, to make the necessary raids and arrests. The two Detectives are not especially happy about matters, but accept them and follow his orders willingly, because, after all, he solves cases. The Professor has contempt for them and for police in general--they're just not intelligent, by his standards--but he gets the job done, having solved the case from the comfort of his house. Many of the crimes seem impossible, and some verge on the supernatural: death by vacuum, disappearances from locked rooms, haunted house horrors, disappearing houses, radium thefts, disappearing automobiles, footprints in the snow that abruptly stopped. But the Professor, world-renowned for his intelligence and accepted by everyone in academia as the final arbiter in thorny cases, solves them all.

On the whole, the "Thinking Machine" stories are not without a certain interest. Some critics have noted a certain tendency towards cop-outs in some of Futrelle's stories, and the Professor's constant irritation, petulance, and foul mood are something of a turn-off for me, but the stories are professionally written and rather intelligently done, and one finds oneself reading along just to see how the mystery will be solved.

Impossible Crime Fiction: Jacques Futrelle
Rather a good short essay on Futrelle, his style and place in the genre.

Jacques Futrelle
The official Jacques Futrelle home page. Rather sparse at the moment, but it promises more to come. It has e-texts for "The Problem of Cell 13," one of the most reprinted short stories of all time, and "The Phantom Motor."

Prof. van Dusen Homepage.
A fan page for van Dusen. In German, unfortunately.

Thomas, Ethel. Ethel Thomas was created by Cortland Fitzsimmons and appeared in four novels, beginning with The Whispering Window (1936). Ethel is an old maid socialite, highly placed in New York society and descended from a very prestigious family. When murder disturbs her rarified social circles, she takes the time out from her busy day to investigate the crime and to solve them. She's something of a busybody, but not unkind.

Thompson, Blair. Blair Thompson was created by Barry Barringer and appeared in Code of the Air, a ten-part 1928 serial. Thompson is a secret agent working for the U.S. government who, with the help of his faithful dog Silverstreak tracks down Professor Ross, an evil inventor who has created a "kappa ray beam." Ross uses this weapon to shoot down airplanes and then steal their cargo of stocks and bonds. Thompson and Silverstreak succeed, of course.

Thorkel, Doctor. Dr. Thorkel was created by Henry Kuttner and appeared and Tom Kilpatrick and appeared in Dr. Cyclops (1940). Thorkel is an insane scientist who is carrying out clandestine experiments in the Peruvian jungles. The subject of his experiments is miniaturization, and he uses the radium he has found in Peru to do this. When four American explorers stumble on his labs, he miniaturizes them, forcing them to deal with such horrifying monsters as a cat, a chicken, and raindrops.

Thorndyke, Doctor. One of the greatest of the medical sleuths, Doctor Thorndyke, the creation of R. Austin Freeman (1862-1943), first appeared in The Red Thumb Mark (1907) and in a number of short stories and novels thereafter. Freeman was a British physician who traveled and worked in Africa before returning to England. He wrote travelogues based on his experiences in Africa and penned a number of other detective and bent hero/heroic amoral stories. His lasting contribution to the detective genre, however, remains Dr. Thorndyke.

Thorndyke is a forensic scientist and lawyer who lives and works in London and is brought in by his associate Inspector Badger of Scotland Yard (sometimes Inspector Blandy or Superintendent Miller do the asking) to solve certain tricky cases. (The police are generally wary of him, but he does solve cases). On occasion he is retained by an insurance company to provide expert medical opinion. In most ways he is the opposite of the contemptible Father Brown, relying on evidence rather than intuition and rarely if ever analyzes the people involved. Thorndyke uses his skills of observation to look at the things involved in a case, the physical clues and evidence that will convict or set free. He brings with him his research kit, the "inevitable green case," everywhere he goes; it is full of small instruments and chemicals that he uses in his examinations. He is rather solemn and painstaking while on the job, keeping himself emotionally detached and secretive. Off the job he is kindly, philanthropic, dignified, and even witty, but on the job he is all business, even if his attitude towards his assistants and to the police is sometimes ironic and even vaguely contemptuous. Thorndyke is knowledgeable about a great many subjects beyond simple forensics; he has a mastery of matters from Egyptology to ophthalmology. (In this he is rather like Sherlock Holmes) He has exceptional (thought not superhuman) reasoning and imaginative abilities, and these are a great help to him in solving crimes. He also makes use of the most up-to-date medical equipment, everything from X-rays to microscopes.

Thorndyke lives at 5A King's Bench Walk in London's Inner Temple. His roommates are Christopher Jervis, his chronicler and assistant, and Nathaniel Polton, his lab assistant, butler, amanuensis, pet inventor, and photographer. Polton is clever and has great technical knowledge, but Jervis inevitably fails to grasp the significance of what he oh-so-carefully notes. Thorndyke is quite handsome; he is tall, slim, athletic, with classical features, keen eyesight and hearing, and extraordinary manual skills.

R. Austin Freeman
A very good and insightful look at Freeman's police in the mystery genre and at Dr. Thorndyke.

"The White Footprints"
E-text of one of Thorndyke's adventures, courtesy of the outstanding Gaslight site.

Thorold, Cecil. Cecil Thorold was created by Arnold Bennett, of all people, and appeared first in a series of stories in The Windsor Magazine in 1905, and then in The Loot of Cities later that year. Thorold, to quote Ellery Queen himself, is "a curious character--combination criminologist, promoter, and Robin Hood. In most of his cases--'schemes'--he commits crimes to accomplish his ends: he blackmails to thwart a criminal, steals to recover a missing bracelet, kidnaps to further a romance, and so on." All of which is true, although it should be stressed that Thorold never stops himself from profiting at the expense of his (well-deserving) victims, whether monetarily or by gaining, for example, seats to a sold-out opera performance.

Thorold isn't violent, although he's capable of using (and shooting) a revolver if he has to. He generally prefers to scheme in a neat and bloodless manner, employing burglary while his victims are away or blackmail delivered in genteel and discrete manner. He's very much in the gentleman thief tradition, although infinitely more preferable, witty, and modest than the loathsome Raffles.

To quote himself:

What was I to do? I was rich. I was bored. I had no great attainments. I was interested in life and in the arts, but not desperately, not vitally. You may, perhaps, say I should have taken up philanthropy. Well, I'm not built that way. I can't help it, but I'm not a born philanthropist, and the philanthropist without a gift for philanthropy usually does vastly more harm than good. I might have gone into business. Well, I should only have doubled my millions, while boring myself all the time. Yet the instinct which I inherited from my father, the great American instinct to be a little cleverer and smarter than someone else, drove me to action. It was part of my character, and one can't get away from one's character. So finally I took to these rather original 'schemes,' as you call them. They had the advantage of being exciting and sometimes dangerous, and though they were often profitable, they were not too profitable. In short, they amused me and gave me joy.

Thubway Tham. Tham, created by Johnston McCulley (creator of a few other characters on this site), debuted in Detective Story Magazine on 4 June 1918 in "Thubway Tham," and kept returning, in Detective Story Magazine, Best Detective Magazine, Clues, Detective Fiction Weekly, and Black Book Detective, through 1948. Tham was a grouchy little man with a lithp who preyed on the folkth who rode the thubway in New York Thity. Tham'th home, ath thuch, was Timeth Thquare, and he uthually watched the traffic from a bench, puffing away on a thigarette and grouthing to himthelf about everything under the thun. Tham ith of courthe very thkilled at hith job, perpetually eluding Detective Craddock, who knowth what Tham doeth and alwayth trieth to catch him but never doeth. Tham is a crook, of courth, but not without a thenthe of juthtithe; many of thothe he victimizeth had it coming to them, tho unpleathant were they. (Has the lithp gotten annoying to you yet? Then imagine how aggravating it is to read story after story after bloody damn story with "Tham" always speaking like that). Tham is not handsome, but rather shiftless looking.

Thunderbolt. The Thunderbolt was created by Johnston McCulley, creator of Black Star, Zorro, the Man in Purple, the Avenging Twins, and the Crimson Clown, and appeared in Detective Story magazine from 1920 through 1921. John Flatchley is the Thunderbolt, one of the first of the modern costumed heroes. (Not, it should be emphasized, one of the killer vigilantes; the Thunderbolt used a gun but never killed anyone with it) He was an air ace during WW1, a big game hunter, had trekked to the North Pole and had won metals for bravery under fire. Thirty years old and with a taste for excitement, he is athletic, strong, and handsome, a scion of wealth and society. Unfortunately, on returning from the War he discovers that his massive inheritance, the $200,000 he was due to receive from his uncle’s estate, is the result of his uncle’s dealings with six crooked financiers. Flatchley is outraged that these men, the Big Six, could get so rich off of widows and orphans (literally—“You are thieves who robbed widows and orphans”), and so Flatchley decides to put on his black hood (slits cut for eyes, yellow lightning bolt pained on the forehead) and become The Thunderbolt, a masked crusader who will right wrongs, steal all the money from the Big Six (wretched men, all) and return it to its rightful owners. The Thunderbolt is assisted in this by his valet, Saggs, a failed petty crook with no redeeming features but who is faithful to Flatchley for having redeemed his life. The Thunderbolt is hunted by Detective Martin Radner, who is eager to catch the Thunderbolt but inevitably fails.

Tidd, Mark. Mark Tidd was created by Clarence Kelland and appeared in the nine-book "Mark Tidd Series" which ran from 1913 to 1928 and began with Mark Tidd (His Adventures and Strategies). Mark, who seems to be nothing more than the child version of Nero Wolfe, is a fat boy with a stuttering problem. Luckily for him he's got a very good brain, and he uses it to overcome the inevitable bullies and criminals he runs across. He edits his school paper, goes into business for himself, and travels to Italy, Egypt, and Sicily, never losing his weight or his stutter, but always triumphing due to his intellect.

Mark Tidd's Citadel
The e-text. What a wondrous thing the Web is. An e-text of Mark Tidd's Citadel? Lord'a'mercy.

Tintin. Tintin was created by "Hergé," the pen-name of Georges Remi, and debuted in Tintin aux Pays des Soviets (Tintin in the Land of the Soviets) (1929); he's appeared in comics, movies, and books since then. Tintin is a teenage Belgian boy, who despite his age works for Le Petit Vingtieme and travels around the world looking for stories. He usually gets involved in the stories he reports on, helping people and seeing that the wicked and criminal are punished. He literally travels around the world, going to America, the Congo, the Mediterranean, Egypt, India, South America, Scotland, Tibet, and the moon itself. He is accompanied by his faithful dog, the fox terrier Milou (who speaks to the reader), Dupont and Dupond, a mustachioed pair of French detectives, Captain Haddock, a strong, alcoholic sea captain, and Professor Tournesol, the deaf, dithery, eccentric (but brilliant) scientist, whose inventions (a new white rose, an anti-alcohol tablet, a mini-sub, a moon rocket, an "ultra-sound emitter," and high-speed roller skates) enrich Tintin enough that he, Haddock, and Milou are able to move in to a castle together.

Tintin
A well-done site on the character.

Tintin Webring
51 sites (many in languages other than English) on Tintin; he well deserves this sort of devotion--I'm afraid I haven't done him the justice he deserves.

Todd, Jerry. Jerry Todd, written by Edward Edson Lee, debuted in Jerry Todd and the Whispering Mummy (1923) and appeared in 16 more novels, through 1941. He was a sixteen-year-old do-gooder, somewhat gullible and foolish but "straight as a string, God-fearing, polite, and honorable." With his friends Scoop Ellery (leader of the gang), Red Meyer, and Peg Shaw, Jerry had prosaic, small-town adventures (they lived in Tutter, Illinois, "one of the smallest towns in La Salle County), the most dire things being the stand-offs with the bullying Stricker gang, who were from "Zulutown." These confrontations were mild, though, involving nothing more dangerous than mud, rotten tomatoes, and rotten eggs.

The Toff. The Toff was created by John Creasey and debuted in "The Black Circle," in The Thriller in 1933; he appeared in a number of other stories and novels through at least 1975. The Toff was Richard Rollinson, a handsome, wealthy Mayfair playboy gentleman. He helps solve crime; actually, he solves the crime, and the police (in the person of Inspector Gryce) help him, cleaning up afterwards, collecting evidence, and all the dirty work that a toff like Rollinson can't be bothered to carry out. The Toff takes on a variety of criminals, from black marketeers to kidnapers to murderers. He's a handsome man, of course, and is assisted by his valet, the wise and devoted Jolly, and by his aunt, Lady Gloria "Old Glory" Hurst, who rather enjoys fighting crime with her nephew Richard.

Since putting in that entry I've read The Durable Desperadoes, an excellent source of information on several pulp characters, and William V. Butler's comments on the Toff have made me rethink the character. Butler points out that the Toff is no Saint-like superman, but is surprisingly fallible, cheerful, unassuming, and somewhat unsure of himself. Rollinson turns out to be rather mild and reflective, very much concerned with what Jolly and Lady Gloria think of him. Rollinson asks them for advice and actually takes it.

Tolefree, Philip. Philip Tolefree was created by R.A.J. Walling and appeared in various stories and novels beginning with The Fatal Five Minutes (1932). Tolefree is a private investigator, who depending on your point of view is either a twit or simply unpretentious and low-key. He is definitely a working man, rather than a gentleman detective, and is concerned with business, rather than leisure. He is very much a middle class detective, with a drab office, a secretary, and regular working hours. His Watson is a salesman named Farrar. He tends to cater the rich.

Tompkins, Professor. Professor Tompkins was created by T. Malby Haddow and appeared in the British pulp The Story Magazine in 1911. I have very limited information on Prof. Tompkins, and any information on him would be greatly appreciated. What I do know is that Professor Tompkins was the creator of the Time Car, a time machine which allowed him and his friend the narrator to travel into the past and the future.

Toto Fouinard. Toto Fouinard was created by Jules Lermina and appeared in La Vie D'Aventures (A life of adventures) from 1907 to 1908 and Toto Fouinard, le petit detective parisien (Toto Fouinard, the small Parisian detective) from 1908 to 1909. Toto (his name means, approximately, "little sneaking louse," although one translation of "Fouinard" has it as "Nosey Parker") is a Parisian boy detective who has the usual boy detective-type adventures. Think about the Hardy Boys only with bloodier plots. Toto is a small boy of indeterminate age, "between sixteen and twenty while appearing fifteen." He has a thin, clean-shaven face, and lively eyes; he is agile and a capable prestidigitator, when necessary. He is a stereotypical Parisian, being both insouciant and a philosopher. He was orphaned when he was a child and spent his time learning "a thousand trades," finally becoming an actor and detecting on the side. Toto does not kill and does not carry a gun. He doesn't need to, though; he's very good with his fists and even better with "Justine," his cane, who he calls his "most faithful collaborator." His enemies are on the crazed side: insane scholars, mass murderers, ferocious gang members, Hindu fanatics, and scientist poisoners.

His stories were "The Strangling at the Door of the Holy-Martin," "The Unknown Assassin," "A Nail in a Skull," "The Murderer of Children," "Six hundred thousand francs of diamonds," "The Exploits of Piedeboeuf, "The Death to Two Under," "The Tragic House," "The Martyr Forçat, "The Thirteen Apaches," "The Strange Matter of Father Lachaise," and "The Secret of the Sleepwalker."

Thanks to Marc Madouraud for information on Toto Fouinard.

Towers, Ted. The "Animal Master" was created by Ed Anthony and various King Features hands and ran from 1934 to 1939. Ted Towers, Animal Master was never particularly well done, certainly not better than Tarzan or Jungle Jim, but it did have a certain number of jungle adventure thrills. Ted Towers, a Stump HugeLarge type, is a clean cut white boy who traps animals for a living. (BOO!) He worked out of India, although his adventures bring him to many other remote and animal-infested areas. He was aided by his "faithful retainer" Ali, a trained tracker and guide who was more faithful to Ted than he deserved, and Catherine Custer, the spunky blonde love interest. Ted initially had various adventures tracking down dangerous animals, like an enormous Bengal tiger, but later on started opposing native rebellions, vicious rival trappers (they didn't really care about the animals, you see, just about the money), tiger cultists, and power crazed tyrants, in places as various and far-flung as Singapore, Siam, and Calcutta.

Towne, Phil. Phil Towne, a tough G-Man, was created by William R. Cox and appeared in Ace G-Man Stories from 1939 to 1943. He's a "slope-shouldered, indolent, non-descript beyond belief" Federal agent, hard-bitten, given to attending prize fights and disguising himself as a taxi driver, violent and accurate with his .357 Magnum. His enemies range from ordinary kidnapers to German spies.

Track, Marcus. Marcus Track, whose creator is unknown to me, appeared in Dreadnought from 1912 to (I think) 1914. Track was an English amateur consulting detective, but unlike most other characters English consulting detectives he was neither easily accessible or willing to visit potential clients. Track, a bitterly charming misanthrope of "gipsy features" (I think Track would be far more interesting to sardonic modern readers than to the average Edwardian), lives in a "barbaric palace" built on a "high pinnacle" overlooking the North Sea. Track, for reasons never quite fully explained, felt the need to protect himself as much as possible, so he fortified his castle, lining it with traps.

Actually, the reasons for his precautions are obvious, I suppose. He was badly wanted by various criminal syndicates, and they stopped at nothing in attempts to assassinate him. A cruiser bombarded Track's castle with six-inch shells. An attempt was made to dynamite the pinnacle his castle was on. Many spies and assassins tried to break in to the castle to get to him.

All of which explains the precautions he took. The castle was surrounded by a high, wide, strong stone wall a mile in circumference. On the other side of the wall was the "pit of treachery," into which many trespassers fell and died. Outside the wall, dozens of armed men patrolled. There was no visible entrance into the castle. The interior of the castle, especially the tunnels and rooms "carved into the living rock," were patrolled by lions and tigers. (No bears, alas) Those braving all this would be grabbed by padded claws from  the bottom of Track's radio-controlled "box-kite aeroplane" and dropped into tunnels. All those unwelcome visitors who were caught--and no one ever escaped Track's precautions--were set to work in "enforced repentance" in an underground chamber, never to return. (Track's really pretty neat, I think)

Those who come to Track looking to hire him are confronted outside the walls by Grip, a "Chinese dwarf" and Marcus's servant, and blindfolded by Grip and led to an underground passage. (Some visitors are simply netted and thrown over the parapet) In Track's underground reception room they would finally meet Track, who sat on a stone throne, a black eagle perched above his head and surrounded by Grip, two nameless Japanese servants (Track spoke to them in Japanese), a parrot, a raven, and a white dove. The room was well appointed, with "ottomans, rich silks, tapestries, wild beasts' skins and stained glass windows," not to mention the many objet d'art (booby trapped, of course; the unwelcome touch of a stranger would bring down a giant cage atop the stranger).

Tracy, Dick. Debuting in October 1931, and still running today, Dick Tracy, created by Chester Gould, established the cop comic strip archetype forever after. In the very beginning Dick Tracy was not a cop. However, in that first episode Dick was the held at gunpoint during a bank holdup in which his girlfriend, Tess Trueheart, was kidnapped and Tess' father was murdered. Disgusted, Dick joined the police force and tracked down the criminals, and off his career went. Most people are at least passingly familiar with the world of Dick Tracy, of course--the widespread corruption and crime in Tracy's Chicago; the exotic criminals (Trigger Doom, Flattop, B.B. Eyes, Mumbles, Mrs. Pruneface, the Mole, Laffy, the Blank, Wormy, Oodles, Flyface, Rhodent); the wrist radio, later the wrist tv. In fact, Tracy is widely enough known (though, oddly, there's no good page on him on the 'Net) that I don't really feel I have to go into any more detail, do I?

Tracy, Jerry. Jerry Tracy, created by Ted Tinsley, appeared in Black Mask starting in 1933. Tracy was a gossip columnist for the Daily Planet. (The one in New York City, not Metropolis) He was a small, flashy, dapper "Broadway wise guy" whose mouth often got him in trouble but who was always capable of writing, punching, or shooting his way out of it.

Tracey, Kay. Kay Tracey was created by Frances K. Judd and appeared in eighteen novels, beginning with The Secret of the Red Scarf, in 1934. Kay is a sixteen-year-old amateur detective in the Nancy Drew mold. She has "a sense of sleuthing that a professional might envy." Through her many adventures and mysteries she is aided by her best friends, the twin sisters Betty and Windy Worth.

Trant, Derek. Derek Trant was created by Charles Rodda, appearing in Flynn’s Weekly from 1924 to 1925. Trant is yet another of the Holmes copies, this time active in New York and a piano player. He is assisted by a ninny of a lawyer, his friend Edward Santry. Notably, though, Trant’s opponents are a bit more on the outré side than Holmes’, running from voodoo priests to evil Chinese masterminds to hundred-foot-long snakes.

Trant, Luther. Luther Trant, America's first scientific detective, debuted in "The Man in the Room," in the May 1909 issue of Hampton's Magazine. There was a brief vogue for Trant, with a dozen more stories and a book, The Achievements of Luther Trant (1910), before the detective disappeared from public sight. He then reappeared in 1926 when Hugo Gernsback reprinted the stories in Amazing Stories and then Scientific Detective Monthly, ending in 1930. Trant was created by Edwin Balmer (1883-1959) and William MacHarg (1872-1951), brothers-in-law and Chicago newspapermen who wrote widely in both detective fiction and in the periodicals of the time.

Trant, as mentioned, was a scientific detective. Indeed, the science and the equipment Trant uses attracts an almost embarrassing amount of attention from Balmer and MacHarg. Chemical baths, X-ray machines, lie-detectors, advanced microscopes, devices to measure physical responses to emotional stress (like the galvanometer), "pendulum chronoscopes"--they all appear in the Trant stories and are crucial in helping Trant solve the crimes. But Trant is more than just his machines. He is an eager and enthusiastic criminologist, always vigorous in his pursuit of the criminal. He is a psychologist, one of those breed who use numbers more than insights into personalities. He has enormous amounts of energy, moves quickly, and speaks in a decisive and abrupt manner.

Trant went right from the farm to the university (not named) where he tore through his courses, gulping them down whole and excelling at all of them. He attracted the attention of the famed Professor Reiland early on and was offered an assistantship in the university's Psychology Laboratory just before graduation, but such a limited role held little attraction for Trant, who left for Chicago, where he set up his practice and quickly flourished.

Trant is short--"stumpy"--with a shock of red hair, clean cut, in good shape and with, as mentioned, excessive energy. He has mismatched eyes, and beneath the blue, right eye is a small red scar.

MacHarg and Balmer
A concise and insightful account of the pair (as usual for this site) and of Trant, from the Guide to Classical Mystery and Detection site.

Trapp, Simon. Simon Trapp, that cleverest of pawnbrokers, was created by Roy Hinds, a long-time contributor to the pulps, and appeared in Detective Story Magazine from 1921 through 1928, starting with “Full of Tricks” in the magazine’s 8 January issue. Trapp runs a grimy pawnshop in a rundown section of New York City. He also runs, from the pawnshop’s back room, various criminal scams, sending his hirelings to do whatever he pays them, and is in turn paid, to do. Not murder, of course; Trapp has no truck with that. But insurance fraud, safecracking, blackmail, laundering and fencing—he’ll see that it’s all done. For a price. He is not totally without scruples; in one story Trapp, seeing a boy tumbling towards a life of crime, breaks the boy’s father out of jail so that the boy can be shown that Crime Does Not Pay. (At least, not unless you’re clever, like Trapp) Most of the stories are about Trapp earning money the old-fashioned way: through crime.

Trapp is an old man with a wrinkled face and a long beard, sketched in such a way that one might think, with reason, that he is an anti-Semitic stereotype. Most of the other hallmarks of that stereotype don’t appear, though.

Trask, Ivy. Ivy Trask was created by Judson Philips and appeared in Detective Fiction Weekly in 1932. She was an actress and adventuress.

Travers, Ludovic. Ludovic Travers was created by Christopher Bush and appeared in sixty one novels, beginning with Dead Man Twice (1930). Travers is a wealthy amateur detective of a genial personality who assists Scotland Yard; he is an unofficial adviser to Superintendent Wharton. Travers' specialty is destroying the "unbreakable" alibi.

Travis, June. June Travis appeared in The Red Circle (1915). June was descended from a line of thieves and had a red circle on her hand. This led to her stealing and acting like a distaff Dr. Jekyll, all without being able to control herself. She is eventually rescued from a life of crime and jail by a detective whose love helps destroy her hereditary curse.

Treadgold, Mister. Mr. Treadgold was created by Valentine Williams and appeared in various stories and novels beginning with Dead Man Manor (1936). Treadgold is a Saville Row tailor who is also an amateur detective; he moves with assurance and confidence through all social classes as he solves his crimes.

Trent, Anthony. Anthony Trent was created by Wyndham Martyn and appeared in 25 novels, beginning with Anthony Trent, Master Criminal (1918). Trent was a master criminal, of a sort, although he could be surprisingly clumsy about some things, like keeping his secret identity an actual secret. Educated at Dartmouth (typical; scratch a Dartmouth grad and you'll find something unhealthy and festering) Trent began writing mysteries after a few years as a reporter, but his real self is a thief, and his real thrills come from theft. He concentrates on jewels, and only bothers to steal large, extremely valuable gems: "the great Takawaja emerald, the Mount Aubyn ruby, the Edgcumb sapphire, the hundred-caret Nizam's diamond." Unfortunately, his successes at theft seem always to be accompanied by pursuit by pitiless and cruel men, some who capture and torture him. Many times his secret identity is revealed, and he has to scramble to cover himself or concoct a cover story that will hold up under scrutiny. Even a stint in France during World War One did not cure him of his rashness. Trent gradually moves on to helping good people through illegal means (kidnaping and threats, for one) and marries a good woman. It's all...rather not interesting.

Trent, Philip. Philip Trent was created by E.C. Bentley and appeared in two novels and at least three movies beginning with Trent's Last Case (1913). Trent is a tall, gangly, youngish English artist who gets drawn into various mysteries and ends up solving them. He is pleasant and friendly, fond of a comfortable life style, and curious about crimes--so much so that he'll abandon his art to respond to requests by London newspapers to help investigate crimes. He is a good investigator, but is not infallible and is quite capable of making dramatic mistakes on a case.

Trevor, Sir George Llangolen. Sir George Llangolen Trevor, the First Viscount Dartmoor, was created by Charles H. New and appeared in Blue Book starting in 1909 and running through 1935 (or so). Dartmoor is a gentleman, one of the wealthiest in Europe, known and befriended by royalty. He is a sportsman, someone who uses cars and planes (these, in 1910!) and owns a yacht, the Ranee Sylvia. He has a laughingly amused approach to life, enjoying leisure and finding things like politics tedious. In his past, though, he was not so casual about matters. As a younger man he had been a Deputy Commissioner, of noble ancestry but penniless, and in love with a woman who he refused to marry (he's penniless, after all) She married an older man, and he left for India, where he contracted enteric fever and died. During his last days he was comforted by a friend, Cyrus K. Grisscome, a rich young man of a noted Boston family. Cyrus was Trevor's exact double, and--

--wait. You've guessed. Yes, Cyrus takes Trevor's place and becomes Trevor. Cyrus, too, had a background in diplomacy, being close to Teddy Roosevelt and having been a member of Teddy's Diplomatic Service. Cyrus went to the Orient after the Service was disbanded. In the Khyber Pass he saved an Afghan Prince, Abdool Mohammed, from a tiger; thus was their friendship born, and together they adventured in the area and out, saving each other's life several times over. They discover the dying Trevor, and agree to settle his affairs. Back in England, though, Cyrus is repeatedly mistaken for Trevor, and he decides to become Trevor, to see how long he could get away with it.

Within a few years he revitalizes the Trevor line and carries out a number of services for England, all in the intelligence category, all unofficial and unauthorized, but very useful. He and his friends (his wife, a very talented agent named Nan Tremain, a son named Ivo (by Nan), Earl Lammerford of St. Ives (a retiree agent), Raymond Carter (retiree American agent), Scarpia (aged Italian painter), other friends) become "Diplomatic Free-Lancers," (also the title of the series) helping to spy for England and skotch German and Russian plans. Cyrus is also offered a peership, but refuses and tells handler at Downing Street, Sir Edward Wray, his real identity; Wray then discovers that Cyrus is a second cousin to Trevor, and the only living heir to the title Viscount Trevor of Dartmoor. Thereafter Trevor slowly accumulates personal wealth and power, as well as foiling the schemes of numerous anarchists, Communists, and other wrongdoers. As the years go by Ivo ages and becomes a brilliant scientist and agent and perhaps his father's equal.

Dartmoor is in his early forties, lithely but strongly built. He is clean shaven, with a patrician's face. He wears a monocle.

Trimble, Terry. Terry Trimble, that Beau Brummell of detectives, was created by Johnston McCulley (of White Rook and others) and appeared in Detective Story Magazine from 1917 to 1920. Brummell…I mean, Trimble is an excessively well-dressed man, the very picture of the late teens British fop, full of affectations and petty ego. His uncle, on dying, had bequeathed Trimble a large amount of money and a rambling apartment house, and Trimble uses them to be a society swell. He seems to all (even, occasionally, the reader) to be an empty-headed ninny, Bertie Wooster without the good nature. He is, though, a professional detective, and on various rare occasions his gray eyes will glint seriously and his previous languid motions will become rapid and his thinking quicker, and he will somehow manage to capture the criminals he’s been hired to find, even if he has to disguise himself to do so. He is aided by Billings, his secretary and personal assistant, and the lovely Ella Norton, his stenographer. Ella, in fact, several times saves Trimble’s life, with her brains, fists, and her gun. Trimble needs her help, too; in between normal criminals Trimble encounters a lethal, quick-acting gas, a disintegration beam, a paralysis ray, a bug-like “microphone disk,” and a few other scientifically fantastic devices.

Trimo, Joe. Joe Trimo was created by "Horton Jacques," most likely a pseudonym, and appeared in Private Detective Stories. Trimo was a private detective, tough and cynical and wise-cracking.^tm He was also much more randy than most p.i.s, a real dog about women.

Tros of Samothrace. Tros was created by Talbot Mundy and first appeared in Adventure in 1925; his stories appeared there through 1926, and then in several novels through 1935. Tros lives in the decades before the year 0, a product of the Mediterranean--Samothrace, to be exact, product of the Winged Victory and home of the Great Gods. Tros, the son of Prince Perseus, is not made an initiate into the Higher Mysteries of the Great Gods, finding them to be somewhat useless.

Tros is a leader of men, a military captain, clever as a leader and driven by honor to do right by those who serve him. He is also a master seaman, among the best sailors of his day. Tros fights his way around the Mediterranean, sending many Romans down to the briny deep; Caesar is the villain of most of the series, drawn by Mundy as a "liar, a brute, a treacherous humbug and conceited ass." Tros fights Northmen and Briton, eventually marrying one of the former and bringing both groups around to his side. He builds the Liafail, a massive ship of his own unique design, filled with special armaments for Greek Fire. He cons Caesar into making him his Admiral. He stops conspiracies in Spain. In Rome he helps pressure Caesar into abandoning an invasion of Spain (though not after having to fight in the Circus Maximus). He acquires the disfavor of Cleopatra and has to carry out tasks for her, squashing conspiracies and intrigues, some by her sister. He ends up marrying Arsinoe, the sister (his first wife was killed while a prisoner), earning him the wrath of Cleopatra (she burns Liafail, for one). Tros helps Marc Anthony defeat Brutus and Cassius, and Anthony gets Cleopatra off his back. And there the series ended--with Mundy's death, though he intended to finally have Tros achieve his goal and sail around the world (he would have met Mayans, for one).

Tros is huge, muscular, bearded, with amber eyes and black hair. He has a commanding manner to him--a "crushing obstinacy of his jaw and chin." He is primarily assisted by his lieutenant, Conops, the drinking, whoring, one-eyed sailor, devoted to Tros and very, very capable.

Troy, Jeff & Haila. Jeff & Haila Troy were created by Audrey and William Roose and appeared in nine novels, beginning with Made Up to Kill (1940). Jeff was a photographer and Haila is his wife. With the help of Lieutenant Harkins of the local police, they solve a number of crimes, usually murder.

Tubbs, Wash. See the Captain Easy entry.

Tubby. Tubby was created by Ray Cummings, who wrote widely in science fiction in the 1920s and 1930s. Tubby appeared in Argosy All-Story Weekly from 1921-1923. Tubby was an inventor, although more eccentric rather than humorous (ala Mr Hawkins and Archibald Catfitz). The Tubby stories (not for nothing are they called “insubstantial” and Cummings a writer "without talent") repeat a pattern: Tubby dreams about an odd invention, and then wakes up just as something bad is happening to him or because of him. The inventions range from a fluid in which nothing can sink to a cube that allows mind reading to personal jetpacks to fast growing tomato plans to a disintegrating matter to traveling "sideways in time." Tubby is around 5 feet tall and weighs around 190 pounds, and has a quick temper.

Tugboat Annie. Annie was created by Norman Raine and debuted in "Tugboat Annie," in the Saturday Evening Post in 1927; she later appeared in two movies and then, much later, in a tv show. "Tugboat Annie" is actually Annie Brennan, an "uncouth, earthy, and brawling" widow who owns and runs the Narcissus, a tugboat operating in the Pacific Northwest. She does some light crime fighting  as well as helping people caught in storms, trapped by floods, or other situations. She is aided by her cook, Pinto, and has a friendly rivalry with Horatio Bullwinkle, a competing tugboat captain.

Fred Erisman
An interesting comparison between Tugboat Annie and Ephraim Tutt.

Tuke, Harvey. Harvey Tuke was created by Doug Browne and appeared in at least three novels, beginning with The Cotfold Conundrums (1933). Harvey Tuke is a "Mephistopheles-looking" Officer of the Crown. He is the Chief Assistant to Sir Bruton Kames, the Sir Henry Merrivale-like Director of Public Prosecutions, and Tuke and Kames, together with the "vulpine" Assistant Commissioner (Crime) Wray of Scotland Yard, investigate a number of crimes across the south of England.

Tumithak of the Corridors. Quoting from Ronald Byrd:

Tumithak of the Corridors (created by Charles R. Tanner and first appearing in Amazing Stories of January 1932) was a typical barbarianesque hero in the slightly less typical environs of the far future, during which time alien invaders had long ago driven mankind underground. It is up to Tumithak to lead humans back into the light in a series of stories.

Kara Hüseyin. He's a detective. I don't know his author or when or where he appeared.

Kartal Ihsan. Kartal Ihsan (he should have a dot above the I, but I can't find that symbol in an ASCII set) was created by Peyami Safa (who also created Recai) and appeared in at least two novels, Kartal Pençesinde and Kagithane Faciasi (the g should have a tilde above it and the last i in Faciasi is...a character I don't recognize, but again, I can't find these in an ASCII set), both of which were written in the 1920s. I think. Kartal Ihsan is a Holmesian detective, albeit one who is as much Turkish as pseudo-British and who operates in Istanbul rather than London.

Elegeçmez Kadri. He's a detective. I don't know his author or when or where he appeared.

Civa Necati. He's a detective. I don't know his author or when or where he appeared.

Kandökmez Remzi. He's a detective. I don't know his author or when or where he appeared.

Nahit Sami'ni Sergüzestleri. (There should be a circumflex beneath the second s in Serguzestleri, but, again, my ASCII sets fail me) Sergüzestleri was created by Ebüssüreyya Ali and S. Sadi and appeared in various novels in the 1920s. He's described as the Turkish Arsène Lupin.

Çekirge Zehra. Çekirge Zehra was created by Peyami Safa, the creator of Recai and Kartal Ihsan, and appeared in at least one novel, Göztepe Soygunu (1935?). She's an female detective, independent, middle-aged, and strong-willed.

Turner, Doc. Thanks to Ed Love, a great friend to this site, I can provide some information on Doc Turner. Quoth Ed:

Morris Street is a hub of activity. It and the surrounding neighborhoods and slums house immigrants from around the world. They run their groceries, peddle their goods and are the day laborers of the city. And, at times they are threatened by bizarre crimes and deaths and the police are willing to turn a blind eye. However, Morris Street and it's poor masses have a defender in the neighborhood pharmacist Doc Andrew Turner. Old Doc Turner, with the aid of the two-fisted quick-witted mechanic Jack Ransom, solves the crimes that the police can't or won't.

Doc Turner is an old man, his exact age never given. However, he still has quick reflexes and thinks fast on his feet yet old enough that he doesn't fear death. The real physical stuff is the department of Jack Ransom while Doc has a bit of the scientific detective in him. However, Arthur Leo Zagat's pulpish yarns never quite achieve the polish of R. Austin Freeman's Doctor Thorndyke; the crimes and their resolutions come and go quickly and violently.

The stories make for an interesting counterpoint to the Spider yarns they back-up. The Spider deals with whole-sale destruction and mayhem. The movers and the shakers of the world stroll through his pages accompanied with pretty ladies on their arms. The Doc Turner stories are as passionate but small scale and personal and deal with the invisible people of the large metropolis. The people are ordinary and simple. There is a sense of place and neighborhood in the stories giving Doc Turner the needed spark of originality that separates him from his contemporaries.

Tutt, Ephraim. Ephraim Tutt was created by Arthur Train and appeared in fourteen collections of short stories beginning with Tutt and Mr. Tutt (1920). Tutt is a Vermont-born and Harvard-educated defense lawyer, very much a Yankee, "dead-panned, long-legged, loose-jointed, and transcendently shrewd." He lives and works in Pottsville, New York, where he is the entire torment of prosecutor Hezekiah Mason. Mason never wins a case against Tutt--indeed, Tutt has never lost a case at all. He is very devoted to helping the underdog; Tutt is described as one who

fights fire with fire, meets guile with guile, and rights the legal wrong. He is the Quixote who tries to make things what they ought to be in this world of things as they are, who has the courage of his illusions, following the dictates of his heart where his head says there is no way.

Tweel. Tweel. Tweel was created by Stanley Weinbaum and appeared in at least two of Weinbaum’s Martian stories, beginning with the classic (and it well deserves this status) “A Martian Odyssey” (Wonder Stories, July 1934). Tweel is a native Martian. There are a lot of Martians on this site, but Tweel is significant for being the first real attempt by a writer at portraying a genuinely alien alien. Tweel's race looks vaguely ostrich-like, with a beak of sorts, and "a few feathery appendages," but the beak is flexible, their bodies have four-toed feet and four-fingered hands, long necks, small heads, and round bodies. They're intelligent, able to pick up English words far faster than humans can grasp their language, and they understand math and logic, even if they think somewhat differently than humans. They even make guns, a sure sign of intelligence in early sf. Tweel in particular is friendly towards humans, helping the narrator of "A Martian Odyssey" out of a couple of jams.

Twyford, Kit & Cora. Kit and Cora Twyford appeared in Pluck, The Boys’ Friend, and Union Jack in the early 1910s. They were a brother and sister pair of detectives who appeared in at least one Sexton Blake story. They’ve been described as “a sort of John Steed and Emma Peel in their day,” with Kit being suitably urbane and Cora being “dark-haired, with dark, sparkling eyes and piquant features.” Cora was also a master of disguise as well as a top-notch detective.

Tyler, Dennis. Dennis Tyler was created by John Franklin Carter, writing as "Diplomat," and appeared in seven novels, beginning with Murder in the State Department (1930). Tyler is the well-educated and handsome chief of the U.S. Bureau of Current Political Intelligence, and his cases usually involve espionage- and treason-related murders in the government ranks.

Tyler, Slim. Slim Tyler was created by "Richard Stone" (a Stratemeyer Syndicate pseudonym) and appeared in the six-book "Slim Tyler Air Stories" series, which ran from 1930 to 1932 beginning with Sky Riders of the Atlantic, or, Slim Tyler's First Trip in the Clouds. Slim was a teenage pilot who began flying, discovered an aptitude for it, and quickly began having adventures in his plane, fighting crime, looking for a lost aviator over Greenland, transporting a bank's shipment of gold, getting stranded and ice-bound in Hudson Bay, and finding various lost planes and aviators.

Tyler, Tim. Tim Tyler, a teenage orphan who grew up to lead a thoroughly remarkable career, debuted in Tim Tyler on 13 August 1928 and is still going. He was created by Lyman Young, a cartoonist of the 1930s who got by on limited talent but a great ability to spot and exploit trends. Tyler began as a young orphan who was thrown out of his orphanage when he turned 14. Meeting up with another orphan, Spud Slavins, who quickly became his best friend, the two went to work for Sky Lane Airways and learned to fly from Sky Lane's best pilot, Roy Fleet. The trio then went adventuring across the world, from Alaska to India to China to Arabia. Roy met his future bride in the "jungle heart of India;" she was Mary, the "white princess of the jungle." There they also met Fang, a black panther that eventually became their pet. In 1934, after Roy had returned to America, Tim and Spud joined the Ivory Patrol, a group of white settlers who were trying to regulate the ivory trade in Africa but soon were led into acting as peacekeepers. Tim and Spud, serving under Sergeant Paul Clark, had further adventures with the Ivory Patrol across the continent, rounding up river pirates, Red rabble-rousers, and ivory smugglers, saving explorers and settlers in trouble, discovering lost civilizations, putting down local uprisings, and helping a European princess regain her throne. The man most bothersome to them at this time was bandit chief "Spider Webb," a nasty piece of work who left his enemies strung up in jungle vines. In early 1940 Tim and Spud returned to the US to help in the coming war. They enlisted in the "Coast Patrol" (think: Coast Guard) and were put under the command of Roy Fleet. With Fleet they fought Axis saboteurs, pirates, and spies with names like Captain Phantom, the Octopus, and the White Dragon. During the war they teamed up and occasionally clashed with Trixie Keene, an agent of American counterespionage, and in the later stages of the war the pair went on missions in the South Pacific.

Tyson, Corporal. Corporal Tyson of the Mounties was written by Frederick Nebel and appeared in Northwest Stories in the late 1920s. As you might guess, Corporal Tyson was a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and was fought the criminals that the Mounties usually take down.

Uberfeld, Inspector. Inspector Uberfeld was created by the German writer A. Alt and appeared in Der Tod Fuhr im Zug (1943). He is a philosophical, erudite, and contemplative police inspector for the Berlin police in the years before WW2.

Ubique. Ubique was created by the Australian writer Clarence W. Martin and appeared in Ubique, the Scientific Bushranger (1910). Ubique is essentially a Down Under version of The Infallible Godahl; he is a bushranger who applies scientific principles and methods to his crimes, and is so successful that his crimes go not only unpunished but entirely undetected. He is helped in this by his mastery of disguise. There is one very intelligent Holmesian detective who chases after Ubique, but Ubique always outwits him.

Umlosi. Umlosi, that mighty African warrior and great friend and boon and bosom companion of Lord Dorrimore, first appeared in Nelson Lee Library First Series #105, "The Ivory Seekers," 9 June 1917, written by Edwy Searles Brooks. As you might guess, Umlosi was a regular in the Nelson Lee stories, but he's memorable enough (to me, at least) to merit an entry of his own. Umlosi is very similar to H. Rider Haggard's Umslopogaas and to Lobangu; he's an African warrior and chief of his own tribe who for reasons of his own allows himself to become the sidekick to a white man. It must be said, though, that in each case the character, though bearing some unfortunate racial stereotypes, is an attempt at a positive portrayal. And it must be said that the writers were writing in less racially progressive times and were products of their era.

So, that said...Umlosi is a giant, easily seven feet tall. He is the leader of the Kutana tribe, a "noble and honourable race who live in the dense forests in Central Africa." Umlosi became the Kutana's chief by defeating Fatoomba, his scoundrel half-brother, in combat. Umlosi is of course very tall, very strong, and very athletic. He is a fierce fighter, capable of leaving a trail of corpses behind him either by himself or with the help of his great spear. Most interestingly, he also has a 'snake,' which visits him in his dreams and when he is awake and tells him things. (Lobangu had the very same ability/familiar.) Sometimes the snake tells Umlosi where his friends were; when Lord Dorrimore's plane was forced down, and everyone thought that it was lost in the Kalahari, Umlosi's snake correctly told him that Dorrimore was actually on the veldt. At other times the snake warns Umlosi of imminent danger, at which point Umlosi would also see "red mists," a portent of bloodshed-to-come. The snake was always right.

I don't believe that the story of Umlosi's first meeting with Lord Dorrimore was ever given. In "The Ivory Seekers" the two were presented as a pair, with Lee acting aned speaking as if they were old friends. So it was never explained why Umlosi palled around with Dorrimore so much. We must merely take it as given that there was an unbreakable bond between them. Umlosi called Dorrie "N'Kose," Lee "Umtagati," because Umlosi believed that Lee had magical powers, and Nipper "Manzie," meaning "water," because of the sparkling quality of Nipper's eyes.

Uncle Abner. Uncle Abner was created by Melville Davidson Post, author of the Randolph Mason stories, and appeared in various stories between 1913 and 1918, a collection coming in Uncle Abner: Master of Mysteries (1918). Abner is described by one critic as "one of the greatest American detectives, a giant figure of absolute integrity whose strong moral convictions and profound biblical knowledge compel him to serve as the righter of wrongs and protector of the innocent in his Virginia mountain community." Abner is active in a remote part of Virginia (or perhaps West Virginia) during the decades before the Civil War. He has no official standing within his community, not being a trained or appointed policeman, but feels that it is his God-given duty to administer justice, especially to the wrongdoers who are so capable of eluding it, and so is quite willing to help Squire Randolph, the local Justice of the Peace, when asked to. He has great faith that God will not allow evil to triumph, but instead will hand His "mysterious justice" to the righteous. (Michael Grost describes his faith as being "militantly macho religiosity," and that, too, fits) For all of his faith, though, he is a fine detective, with an incisive and insightful knowledge of people.

Uncle Sam's Boys. Uncle Sam's Boys were created by H. Irving Hancock and appeared in the eight-book "Boys of the Army" series, which ran from 1910-1919 and began with Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks or, Two Recruits in the U.S. Army. The Boys were active with the U.S. Army first in the Philippines (real nice, guys, slaughtering Filipino civilians with the rest of the Army) and then in Europe during WW1.

Unriddler. See the Watts entry.

University of Cosmopoli.  The University was the creation of Edward Heron-Allen and appeared in various short stories which were collected in The Strange Papers of Dr. Blayre. The University, located somewhere in England, is a sort of low-key version of Lovecraft's Miskatonic University. While U-Cosmopoli does not have Things From Beyond Time And Space battering at its doors, does not have non-Euclidean geometry buildings, and does not have copies of the Necronomicon in its library, weird and uncanny things do happen to its students and its faculty. Accursed purple sapphires are donated to the library, with disastrous results; the University Librarian is subjected to a spirit writing episode where he writes the diary of a trip to Hell; the Professor of Astronomy engages in an interstellar romance, with (again) disastrous results; the Professor of Fine Art, due to a badly-judged vacation in italy, is forced to wear a "charmed" gold chain around his neck; the Professor of Zoology is witness to a seance that calls up something that really shouldn't have been summoned; the Professor of Medicine is forced to watch as a friend of his endures a bad marriage and a worse change of personality; and so on. The stories are more entertaining and well-written than you might expect.

Usher, Godfrey. Created by Herman Landon, a stalwart of the detective pulps, Godfrey Usher appeared in the Street and Smith Detective Story Magazine in 1917 and 1918. Usher is a psychic investigator cum occult detective, like Dr. Silence. He is tall and thin, with gray eyes and gray hair. His face has a “suggestion of the mystic” about it, and when contemplating evil he grows cold and hard. He lacks the equipment of Carnacki and the powerful mental abilities of a Moris Klaw; all Usher has is a powerful intuition. That is usually enough, however, for Usher; his success rate, using just his intuition and his skills as a detective, are rather high, even when confronted with occult enemies. Usher is assisted by Inspector Sebastian of the NYC PD, a good cop and highly ranked in the force, but not the mental equal of Usher.
 

Introduction
A. The Abbey Girls to Dusty Ayres
B. Bagley to Scott Burton
C. Orhan Cakiroglu to Dr. Theodore Cunliffe
D-E. Dana Girls to Don Everhard
F. Ralph Fairbanks to Miss Fury
G. The Gadget Man to G-8
H-I. Dr. Hackensaw to Baron Ixell
J. Jack, Doc & Reggie to Justice Syndicate
K. Calvin Kane to Kwa of the Jungle
L. Major John T. Lacy to Langhorne Lyte
M. Professor Maboul to Mr. Mystic
N. Lee Nace to Nyoka
O. Fergus O'Breen to Ozar the Aztec
P.  Penny Packer to Judge Pursuivant
Q.  Oliver Quade to Sebastian Quin
R. Ed Race to Captain Rybnikov
S. The Safety First Club to Tom Swift
T-U. Tahara to Godfrey Usher
V. Lieutenant Valcour to Norton Vyse
W. Inspector Wade to Dr. Xavier Wycherley
X-Z. X Bar X Boys to Zorro
Links.