The Red Right Hand
1945
First Published
3.88
Average Rating
191
Number of Pages
Written in 1945, The Red Right Hand has come to be considered one of the few genuine classics of the mystery genre to have been produced in America. While the novel contains all the requisite clues and false leads of its sometimes more elegant British counterpart, it also provides a quality rarely available in those more genteel entertainments. That quality is terror, sheer unmitigated terror, the kind that has readers checking to see if all the doors are securely locked. After all, it takes a strong constitution not to be frightened when a sympathetic, young New York doctor calmly starts to tell you the chilling story of a young couple on their way to be married who pick up an onminous hitchhiker (who may or may not have previously known the husband-to-be). They are involved in a mysterious accident which results in the disappearance of both men without leaving a trace—except somebody's severed right hand.
Avg Rating
3.88
Number of Ratings
493
5 STARS
30%
4 STARS
38%
3 STARS
24%
2 STARS
6%
1 STARS
2%
goodreads
Author
Joel Townsley Rogers
Author · 2 books
Joel Townsley Rogers, (1896-1984), is best remembered today for his mystery novels such as “The Red Right Hand” and “Once in A Red Moon.” But beginning in the early 1920s, he was a prolific writer of short stories, contributing regularly to the booming all-fiction pulp magazine field, appearing in such titles as Adventure, Short Stories, and Everybody’s. When tales of the Great War became the rage, and aviation excitement grabbed reader interest, Rogers directed his fiction to the air war markets with numerous stories written for Wings, Air Stories, Air War, War Stories, War Novels and Flying Stories among others. By the 1930s, he was selling to the better paying pulp markets of Argosy and All-American Fiction and quickly transitioned into the detective field with sales to Detective Fiction Weekly, Detective Tales, Detective Book Magazines, and New Detective. After World War II, Rogers continued selling fiction to such slick market magazines as The Saturday Evening Post and turning out new mystery shorts for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. His final novel, The Stopped Clock, appeared in 1958.
