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Gruber, Frank

Page history last edited by barry_ergang@... 10 years, 11 months ago

Frank Gruber (1904-1969) was an American writer. His pseudonyms include Stephen Acre, Charles K. Boston & John K. Vedder. See Thrilling Detective for a detailed examination of his work and a list of Gruber short stories and Westerns.

Gruber was born in Minnesota and grew up on the family farm. After Army service, Gruber took on various jobs, and began writing for agricultural trade magazines. He moved to New York in 1934 and finally got his big break doing detective "quickies" for the pulps, including Black Mask.

He wrote a series of short stories featuring smooth-talking crime-solving encyclopedia salesman Oliver Quade, some of which were collected in a book called Brass Knuckles. Gruber enjoyed quirky characters; fast-paced fun;, a detective with, at best, quasi-official status, and a gift for gab; and many of his stories centred on books. Soon Gruber was writing books of his own. He had several series teams: Johnny Fletcher and Sam Cragg were traveling con artists; Los Angeles-based PI name Simon Lash collected rare books. He and his partner, Eddie Slocum, appeared in three novels, as did private eyes Otis Beagle and Joe Peel.

Gruber also wrote many Westerns and later screenplays. In 1967, he published The Pulp Jungle, a collection of reminiscences of his years as a pulp writer.

Some of Gruber's works have been reissued in large print format by Linford Mystery Library, an imprint of Ulverscroft.

Mike Grost on Frank Gruber

Frank Gruber's detectives tend to be small time businessmen, whose work is humorously presented. Oliver Quade is an encyclopedia salesman, where Sam Cragg is a skip tracer. Both men horn their way into public events, where they proceed to ply their trades, using little more than brass effrontery and gumption. The villains in Gruber's stories tend to be swindlers, often making big bucks, but having a bit of a low life, small potatoes feel still clinging to them. On the sidelines in Gruber's stories are a series of millionaires, who live in big mansions in the suburbs of New York City. These men usually turn out to be nice guys, and nearly regular fellows. They seem to be wish fulfillment fantasies on the part of the author, how he would live if he had really big bucks. They tend to be interested in hobbies or collectibles, an interest that often kicks the story off.

Gruber's work has much in common with Norbert Davis' in tone. Both mix comedy with detection. Both often put their hero in physical jeopardy. Davis' Bail Bondsman Dodd is also a two bit small businessman, whose work brings him in contact with the public. Both writers have a penchant for Amazonian women, whose skills with violence and beating up men are depicted as both comic and scary. It is hard to tell which of the authors influenced the other. The Gruber stories reprinted today are a bit earlier than Davis', but this could just be an artifact of publishing. Gruber's tone is more wholesome and less "sick" than Davis'.

Another writer who Gruber seems to have influenced is Craig Rice, especially in her stories about traveling photographers Bingo Riggs and Handsome Kusak. Handsome has a photographic memory, similar to Gruber's Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia. Rice's characters are small time street businessmen, just like Gruber's. Sam Cragg soon teamed up with Johnny Fletcher, the two selling books door to door in a series of 1940's Gruber mystery novels. Craig Rice's characters are a duo, just like Gruber's. If Handsome has a perfect memory, his publishers do not: his name is spelled Kuzak in The Sunday Pigeon Murders (1942), and Kusak in The Thursday Turkey Murders (1943), at least in the paperback editions.

Gruber's fiction shows a multiplicity of approaches. "Death at the Main" is a puzzle plot mystery, with a classical construction. By contrast, "1000-to-1 for Your Money" shows the "pulp style of plotting", with many different characters converging on a complex situation, and the reader never quite sure who is doing what in the plot. Gruber shows skill with both types of plotting. In "1000" he is especially good at changing the roles the characters are playing in the situation, ingeniously twisting them around. "1000" seems to be the same story as "The Sad Serbian", originally appearing in the March 1939 Black Mask.