William Campbell Gault (1910–1995) was an American writer. He wrote under his own name, and as Roney Scott and Will Duke, among other pseudonyms.
He is probably best remembered for his sports fiction, particularly the young-readers' novels he began publishing in the early 1960s, and for his crime fiction.
He was a wide-ranging contributor to the pulp magazines, particularly to the sports pulps, where he was considered one of the best writers in the field. Damon Knight, noted science fiction critic and one-time editor of Popular Publications, wrote the following about Gault's sports fiction:[1]
I liked the characterization in those stories; I liked the description; I liked the fist fights; I liked the love interest. I like everything about them, except what they were all about.
He won the Edgar Award for his first crime fiction novel, Don't Cry for Me (1952).
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The protagonist is Brock Callahan, L.A. football star who quit because of a bad knee and set up shop in Beverly Hills as a private investigator; several re-issued in paperback by Charter Books, circa 1988.