Mark Troy and the Female Private Detective: Trixie Meehan, 1933-1951

Mark Troy is back today with another installment of his series on the female private detective. This time around he covers Honey West. Make sure you check out the earlier installments of this series as well as Mark’s books and website.

Trixie Meehan, 1933-1951

Trixie Meehan and Mike Harris were operatives for the Blaine Detective Agency in sixteen stories by T.T. (Thomas Theodore) Flynn from 1933 to 1951.  They were typical pulp stories, mixing hardboiled heroics, some romance, and outlandish situations.

Mike is a big, tough, wise-cracking redhead, but he is also insightful with a soft spot or two, usually for Trixie. He turns brash and reckless, his anger ratcheting up a notch, when Trixie falls into danger, as she does so often.

Mike narrates the stories so our image of Trixie is filtered through his eyes:

Trixie Meehan stood at my elbow with a leer on her lovely little face. The others probably thought Trixie was smiling. They didn't know the gal. They didn't know Trixie Meehan.

Pert and sweet, soft and cuddly, harmless as a kitten and luscious-looking to all big strong men—that's Trixie if you don't know her.

But if you knew her as Mike knew her, she was a different person.

Trixie was smart, shrewd, fearless and tireless on a case. And her temper would make a scorpion blush and her little tongue could peel the hide off a brass-bound monkey. And when Trixie and I crossed trails on a case, it was usually my hide that took the peeling.

In some of the stories, Trixie and Mike find themselves going undercover as a couple, which produces some fast-paced dialogue ala The Thin Man and Moonlighting. A Nick and Nora Charles, though, they weren't. They were partners in the same agency, sometimes at odds on the same case. Trixie would stand up to Mike and kid him when he was pompous and pull him out of tight spots as any buddy would do. He in turn did the same for her.

Though Trixie depends on Mike whenever there is a fight, she can handle herself when necessary.

He was a bearded, fanatical, challenging figure as Trixie ran in close and pulled the trigger.

Trixie had shot his knee—little Trixie who went to target practice two and three times a week. I'd kidded her about it—and look now.

Little Trixie with her little tongue that could peel Mike’s hide off, saved most of her anger for anyone who tried to hurt Mike. And if he did get hurt, she was solicitous and concerned. Only after she knew he was okay would the hide-peeling begin.

T. T. Flynn, 1902-1979, passed up college to see the world as a merchant seaman and then as a railroad man and a hobo. In 1925, he began writing mysteries and westerns. In 1927, afraid of running out of ideas and inspired by Lindbergh’s flight across the Atlantic, he took flying lessons which led to his writing air adventure stories. Mike and Trixie were his most popular detectives, but they never appeared in a novel. His other detective was Mr. Maddox, the racetrack detective. He is best known for his western, The Man From Laramie, which was made into a movie starring Jimmy Stewart. Many of his western novels survive and can be found on Amazon.

The Mike and Trixie stories are hard to find. “Brother Murder” (1939) has been reprinted in The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps (2007) Edited by Otto Penzler. “The Deadly Orchid” (1933) can be found in Hard-Boiled Dames: A Brass-Knuckled Anthology of the Toughest Women From the Classic Pulps (1986) edited by Bernard Drew.

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