Pen name for various American novelists
Patrick Quentin, Q. Patrick and Jonathan Stagge were pen names under which Hugh Callingham Wheeler (19 March 1912 – 26 July 1987), Richard Wilson Webb (August 1901 – December 1966), Martha Mott Kelley (30 April 1906 – 2005) and Mary Louise White Aswell (3 June 1902 – 24 December 1984) wrote detective fiction. In some foreign countries their books have been published under the variant Quentin Patrick. Most of the stories were written by Webb and Wheeler in collaboration, or by Wheeler alone. Their most famous creation is the amateur sleuth Peter Duluth. In 1963, the story collection "The Ordeal of Mrs. Snow" was given a Special Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America. In 1949, the book "Puzzle for Pilgrims" won the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière International Prize, the most prestigious award for crime and detective fiction in France.
History.
In 1931, Martha Mott Kelley and Richard Wilson Webb collaborated on the detective novel "Cottage Sinister". Kelley was known as Patsy (Patsy Kelly was a well-known character actress of that era) and Webb—an Englishman (born 1901 in Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset) who worked for a pharmaceutical company in Philadelphia—was known as Rick, so they created the pseudonym Q. Patrick by combining their nicknames—adding the Q "because it was unusual".
Webb and Kelley's literary partnership soon ended, with Kelley's marriage to Stephen Shipley Wilson. Webb continued to write under the Q. Patrick name, while looking for a new writing partner. Although he wrote two novels with the journalist and "Harper's Bazaar" editor Mary Louise Aswell, he would find his permanent collaborator in Hugh Wheeler, a Londoner who had moved to the US in 1934.
Wheeler's and Webb's first collaboration was published in 1936. That same year, they introduced two new pseudonyms: "Murder Gone to Earth", the first novel featuring Dr. Westlake, was credited to Jonathan Stagge, a name they would continue to use for the rest of the Westlake series. "A Puzzle for Fools" introduced Peter Duluth and was signed Patrick Quentin. This would become their primary and most famous pen name, even though they also continued to use Q. Patrick until the end of their collaboration (particularly for Inspector Trant stories).
In the late 1940s, Webb's contributions gradually decreased due to health problems. From the 1950s and on, Wheeler continued writing as Patrick Quentin on his own, and also had one book published under his own name. In the 1960s and '70s, Wheeler achieved success as a playwright and librettist, and his output as Quentin Patrick slowed and then ceased altogether after 1965. However, Wheeler did write the book for the 1979 musical "Sweeney Todd" about a fictional London mass murderer, showing he had not altogether abandoned the genre.
Writing.
The early Q. Patrick detective stories generally follow the Golden Age "whodunit" conventions, with elaborate puzzle mysteries reminiscent of Agatha Christie or John Dickson Carr. In the 1940s, the stories start to move away from the traditional detective pattern: "Puzzle for Fiends" is a Hitchcockian thriller, "Puzzle for Pilgrims" a noir novel, and "Run to Death" a pulpy spy novel.
The majority of the Webb–Wheeler collaborations feature one of their recurring characters: Peter Duluth, a Broadway director, WWII veteran and recovering alcoholic who, with his wife Iris, always seems to stumble across murders; Inspector Timothy Trant of the New York City Police, a Princeton University-educated dandy whose remorseless investigations often seem to be aimed at some innocent person before he reveals his real target; and the country doctor, Dr. Hugh Cavendish Westlake with his daughter Dawn. When Webb bowed out on the writing, these characters disappeared or receded into the background.
A study of all the Q.Patrick/Patrick Quentin/Jonathan Stagge novels has appeared in French, "Patrick Quentin: Du roman-probleme au Thriller Psychologique" by Roland Lacourbe, Vincent Bourgeois, Phillippe Fooz and Michel Soupart (France: Semper Aenigma, 2016).
Legacy.
At one time a relatively popular mystery writer (Francis Iles called Quentin "number one among American crime writers"), Quentin has largely fallen into obscurity in the US, his works out of print.
A few of Quentin's stories have been filmed (see below), most notably the Peter Duluth mystery "Black Widow", which was filmed under that title by Twentieth Century Fox in 1954 as a color Cinemascope feature. Van Heflin portrayed the Peter Duluth character, who for some reason was renamed Peter Denver.
References.
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