Hake Talbot
Hake Talbot is a pen name of the American writer Henning Nelms (November 30, 1900 - May 1986). Talbot was chiefly known for his impossible crime, locked room mystery novel Rim of the Pit (1944).[1] Nelms reserved his real name for writing non-fiction about showmanship (his chief occupation was as a stage magician). He was the author of the book Magic and Showmanship: A Handbook for Conjurers (1969).[2]
During a 1981 poll by experts arranged by Edward D. Hoch, for the preface of his anthology All But Impossible!, Talbot's Rim of the Pit stood second,[3] next only to John Dickson Carr's The Hollow Man (1935) as the best locked room mystery. Another novel, The Hangman's Handyman, which Talbot wrote in 1942, was not as successful. He also wrote two short stories, "The High House" and "The Other Side".
Talbot is the only Carr imitator whose work could actually be preferred to that of Carr himself ... I hope it is clear ... that while Talbot was influenced by Carr's approach, he in all cases showed plenty of personal creativity.
—Mike Grost
References
- ^ "Mike Grost on Hake Talbot". pbworks.
- ^ "A Handbook for Conjurers". Retrieved 2 June 2016.
- ^ "Ranking of Impossible Crimes by Experts". MysteryFile.com.
- Articles with short description
- Short description is different from Wikidata
- Articles with ISNI identifiers
- Articles with VIAF identifiers
- Articles with WorldCat Entities identifiers
- Articles with BIBSYS identifiers
- Articles with BNF identifiers
- Articles with BNFdata identifiers
- Articles with GND identifiers
- Articles with J9U identifiers
- Articles with LCCN identifiers
- Articles with Libris identifiers
- Articles with NKC identifiers
- Articles with NLK identifiers
- Articles with NTA identifiers
- Articles with Trove identifiers
- Articles with SUDOC identifiers
- 1900 births
- 1986 deaths
- 20th-century American novelists
- American magicians
- American male novelists
- American thriller writers
- Historians of magic
- 20th-century American male writers
- American male non-fiction writers
- 20th-century American non-fiction writers
- All stub articles
- American novelist, 20th-century birth stubs