UNITED STATES AUTHOR · FICTION · MYSTERY
Richard S. Prather
Also known as: David Knight, Douglas Ring
Richard Prather was born in Santa Ana, California. In 1940-41 he spent a year at Riverside Junior College (now Riverside Community College). He served in the United States Merchant Marine during World War II, from 1942 through the end of the war in 1945. In 1945 he married Tina Hager and took a job as a civilian clerk at March Air Force Base in Riverside, California. He left that that job to become a full-time writer in 1949. The first Shell Scott mystery, "Case of the Vanishing Beauty" was published in 1950. Prather had a disagreement with his publisher Pocket Books and sued them in 1975. He gave up writing for several years and grew avocados. In 1986 he returned with The Amber Effect. His final book, Shellshock (1987) was published by Tor Books.
Most acclaimed
Dead heat
1984
After a six-year absence from the bestseller lists, Dick Francis roared out of the gate with 2006's Under Orders, demonstrating once again every ounce of his famed narrative drive, brilliant plotting, and simmering suspense. Hard on the heels of that triumph comes Dead Heat, set against the backdrop of Britain's famed Two Thousand Guineas Stakes.Max Moreton is a rising culinary star and his Newmarket restaurant, The Hay Net, has brought him great acclaim and a widening circle of admirers. But when nearly all the guests who enjoyed one of his meals at a private catered affair fall victim to severe food poisoning, his kitchen is shuttered and his reputation takes a hit. Scrambling to meet his next obligation, an exclusive luncheon for forty in the glass-fronted private boxes at the Two Thousand Guineas, Max must overcome the previous evening's disaster and provide the new American sponsors of the year's first classic race with a day to remember.Then a bomb blast rips through the private boxes, killing some of Max's trusted staff as well as many of the guests. As survivors are rushed to the hospital, Max is left to survey the ruins of the grandstand-and of his career. Two close calls are too close for comfort, and Max vows to protect his name-and himself- before it's too late.
The Sweet Ride
1988
Shell Scott. He's a guy with a pistol in his pocket and murder on his mind. The crime world's public enemy number one, this Casanova is a sucker for a damsel in distress. When a pair of lovely legs saunters into his office, he can't help but to take the job, even when the case is a killer. Martinique was a cool, creamy piece of dynamite with a ten-second fuse and an I.Q. around one hundred sixty. Those were numbers Shell Scott like to play-except in her case they seemed to add up to murder.
The Trojan hearse
1985
With a national election going on, my timing might have been less than perfect. Perhaps I did prevent the victory for the shoo-in candidate, but a lot of strange things were happening. There was Polly Plank whom I encountered in her psychiatrist's office in her birthday suit. The American singing idol Johnny Tray who turned up dead. And of course Joe Rice, leader of the West's underworld who also wanted me under - six feet under!