Mark Troy and the Female Private Detective: Carrie Cashin (1937-1943)

Please welcome friend and author Mark Troy to the blog. On the 1^st and 3^rd Wednesday each month Mark will bring another perspective on mysteries here. Something that is good for all of us as the mystery field is a wide one with a rich and deep history. I am looking forward to these posts…

Carrie Cashin, 1937 - 1943

The early 1970's saw a big change in hard-boiled private eye fiction when women PIs entered the field.

Right?

Wrong!

Hard-boiled Janes have walked the mean streets nearly as long as hard boiled Dicks and have acquitted themselves just as well as their brothers.  So it comes as a surprise when a commentator such as John Semley, writing in the New York Times, "The Death Of The Private Eye" makes no mention of women except as femme fatales and minxes. In his view, "The hard-boiled gumshoes were men . . . "

So in upcoming posts we'll give the Janes their due. First up is Carrie Cashin.

Carrie Cashin was the creation of Theodore Tinsley, a prolific author of crime and western fiction. She appeared in forty-four stories from 1937 to 1943 in Crime Busters and Street and Smith's Mystery Magazine. Her appearance on the cover of Crime Busters was enough to spike sales of that issue and Street and Smith came very close to giving her a magazine of her own.

Carrie began as a department store detective, but then started her own agency, the Cash and Carry Agency. She ran it on the sound principle of payment up front, cash only. The agency's motto: "You pay, we deliver." Deliver, she does. She is so successful, she can charge a whopping fee of a thousand dollars for her services.

In the best hard-boiled tradition, Carrie does not let little things, like the law, get in the way of her mission. Breaking and entering, robbery and kidnapping are all part of her skill set. Carrie is not one to enter a door when a window will do. Her weapons are a small gun, which she carries in a thigh holster, and a purse with a secret compartment.

In her first story, "White Elephant," 1937, we find her on a ledge outside a 15th floor hotel room, ready to break in and recover (steal?) a stolen elephant amulet. Recover it she does, but returning to her own room she finds her client dead, killed with her nail file, and the police at the door. Out the window and over the roof she goes, down into the subway where she dodges a train and makes it back to her office.

Carrie's stories are breathless adventures. She rushes here and there, encountering bodies and leaving some herself. She's not all brawn and athleticism, however. She solves the crimes with her brains and wins hearts with her "softly rounded beauty."

Carrie is aided in her exploits by a good-looking, but somewhat dense, "He doesn't know a clue when he sees one," guy named Aleck "Handsome Aleck" Burton. Aleck fronts for the agency because Carrie believes most people are biased against female detectives. Shades of Remington Steele! When a client comes in, Carrie takes the role of a secretary, taking notes and asking the probing questions — for clarification, of course.  Don't expect Handsome Aleck to come to Carrie's rescue or get her out of jams. This is Carrie's show all the way.

She finds the clues, tackles the bad guys, and delivers justice on her own.

Carrie's stories are hard to find. When issues of Crime Busters pop up on eBay, they usually fetch $200 or more. Your best bet is to sample her exploits in Hard-boiled dames: Stories featuring women detectives, reporters, adventurers, and criminals from the pulp fiction magazines of the 1930s, edited by Bernard A. Drew, St. Martin's, 1986. It's worth a visit to your local library.

Mark Troy ©2015

Mark Troy is the author of The Splintered Paddle, The Rules, Pilikia Is My Business and Game Face.  His website is at http://marktroymysterywriter.com