Hugh Pentecost

Biography from >Hugh Pentecost >Aliases: Judson Philips >Hugh Pentecost was a penname of mystery author Judson Philips (1903-1989). Born in Massachusetts, Philips came of age as a writer during the golden age of pulp magazines, and spent the 1930s writing suspense fiction and sports stories for a number of famous pulps. His first book was Hold ‘Em Girls! The Intelligent Women’s Guide to Men and Football (1936), but it was winning the 1939 Red Badge prize for short fiction that started his career writing novels. Beginning with 1939’s Cancelled in Red, Philips would write nearly one hundred books over the next five decades. >His best known characters were Pierre Chambrun, a sleuthing hotel manager who first appeared in The Cannibal Who Overate (1962), and the one-legged investigative reporter Peter Styles. In 1973 he was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America. Although he spent his last years with failing vision and poor health, Philips continued writing daily. His final novel was the posthumously published Pattern of Terror (1989).