All or Nothing

The image below appeared in the August 28th, 1955, Boston Sunday Globe Fiction Magazine pullout. That's week's edition began with a short Halfaday Creek story.

The story spanned the bulk of the first four pages of that section. Black John Smith and his motley crew graced the pages of many issues of Short Stories magazine but rarely found their way onto the cover, so seeing them depicted here is cool. Obviously, that's John on the left, presumably flanked by Cush, and the Mountie is none other than corporal Downey. 

It seems that Hendryx's Halfaday stories appeared at least semi-regularly in that publication. That will be something on which to keep an eye. In the meantime, I've ordered a third collection of Halfaday stories from Steeger Books and look forward to diving into those. 

"Obituaries Missed Wonderful Story Of Jim Hendryx"

I started to put together a page about the Halfaday author and in doing so, sought out his obituary.

They were shockingly lame. A small paragraph buried well into the newspapers providing few details aside from date of death (March 1st, 1963), location (Traverse City, Michigan) and that he wrote numerous books and short stories. 

I eventually found the article below in the March 13th, 1963, Detroit Free Press. John C. Manning did not know Mr. Hendryx well but Hendryx did make an impression on him and so Manning went out looking for anecdotes and prepared a far more fitting tribute. Read on.

Arizona Republic Article, June 22nd, 1941

This is only a portion of an article about the Halfaday Creek series in general and Law And Order on Halfaday Creek in particular. I found it provided a good description of the tone of the series and of the various aspects of Black John's character that make him interesting and endearing for those, like me, who might be new to the series. Its writer was one Harvey L. Mott. 

Welcome to Halfaday Creek!

I've only been here a few days and I love it already!

I came across the Halfaday Creek series while searching for "Northerns", being the name I've seen given to stories about Mounties. I suppose it can apply to any story that takes place in northern Canada but I was looking for Mounties specifically.

James B. Hendrix's tales of a town on the Yukon / Alaska border didn't seem to exactly meet that criteria of my search (though I believe he does have a member of the Northwest Mounted Police visit on occasion) but Steeger Books' sales pitch of the publisher's reprints of those tales drew and held my attention for some time.

What prevented me from buying right away was difficulty in locating details about the series. I prefer to read in chronological order and I couldn't figure out which Creek story came first. As a result, I was also unable to determine which of Steeger's several collections I should start with.

Ultimately, it doesn't seem to matter a whole lot. Skullduggery starts with two stories published in 1944, then has three from 1939 and later one from 1936 then further still has one from 1955. I believe now that the Steeger collections can be bought in any order. 

I'm glad that this lack of clarity didn't deter me from purchasing Skullduggery on Halfaday Creek. I've read only two of the stories therein but have enjoyed them a great deal.

Curiously, the first involves the primary character, Black John, traveling away from the Creek and a significant portion of the second is about an encounter during his return to town. So thus far I know little about Halfaday Creek and its colourful characters but I am quite eager to meet everyone. 

I'm not great with names so I'm going to use this blog to keep everything and everyone straight and hopefully it can be of use to someone one day wanting to make the trip!