Whit Masterson

Whit Masterson was a pen name for a partnership of two American authors, Robert Allison “Bob” Wade (June 8, 1920 – September 30, 2012) and H. Bill Miller (May 11, 1920 – August 21, 1961). The two also wrote under several other pseudonyms, including Wade Miller and Will Daemer.

Together they wrote more than thirty novels, of which several were adapted for film. Most famously, their novel Badge of Evil was adapted into the Orson Welles film Touch of Evil.

Wade and Miller met at violin lessons when they were both 12. From an interview with Wade: "The Wade Miller collaboration worked successfully largely because it began so early. We teamed up at the age of 12." They went on to attend college together at San Diego State, leaving in their senior year of college to enlist in the US Air Force. (source for above 2 paragraphs, also, same information is found in a Mystery*File article by Ed Lynskey).

Anthony Boucher reviewed their first novel, Deadly Weapon, in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1946. He described their writing as having "machinegun tempo, tight writing, unexaggerated hardness" and said it was a "highly satisfactory debut of new publishers and new writing team." (from the San Francisco Chronicle, April 6, 1946) A more recent reading by Richard Moore found that "modern readers would need to overcome instinctive reactions to racial and other slurs" but that "This was a stunning debut novel. It would be a shame if the language of the times kept it from revival." (from Mystery*File magazine #42 April 2004, published by Steve Lewis in CT, also see www.mysteryfile.com link below in Sources)

After Miller's death from a heart attack on August 21, 1961, Wade went on to a solo career as a movie and television scriptwriter. In 1988, Wade was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Private Eye Writers of America. (sources same as above, Mystery*File and the articles by Ed Lynskey, who also interviewed Wade along with Bill Pronzini) Wade also received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the San Diego Public Library in 1998 and the Ellen Nehr award from the American Crime Writers League in 2004, for his work reviewing crime fiction for the San Diego Union-Tribune. Robert Wade died, 92 years old, on Sept 30, 2012.

Sources

External links

At the above link, you will find an illustration of the cover of Branded Woman by Wade Miller, along with the option to read a sample chapter, and some description and blurbs.