author
Harry Stephen Keeler
1890–1967
An eccentric Chicago mystery writer with a lasting cult reputation, he became known for wildly intricate "webwork" plots and a huge output of novels and stories. His fiction often turns familiar detective ingredients into something stranger, denser, and more dreamlike.
1 Audiobook
John Jones's Dollar
by Harry Stephen Keeler
About the author
Born in Chicago on November 3, 1890, Harry Stephen Keeler spent much of his life tied to the city that shaped so many of his stories. Reliable biographical sources agree that he studied electrical engineering at the Armour Institute and also worked as an electrician before building his writing career.
Keeler went on to become a prolific American author, especially in mystery fiction, though he also wrote science fiction. He is best remembered for his unusually tangled "webwork" plots and for the devoted cult following his books later earned, even though he was never a fully mainstream literary name.
He died on January 22, 1967. Readers who come to his work today are usually drawn not just to the puzzles, but to the sheer oddness of his imagination: his books are often described as bizarre, inventive, and unlike almost anyone else in crime fiction.