Raoul Whitfield

Born in New York City on November 22, 1896, Whitfield spent part of his youth in the Philippines and traveled in China and Japan—experiences that later influenced his fiction. During World War I, he served in the U.S. Army and trained as a pilot, flying in France near the end of the conflict. After the war, he worked as a journalist before turning to fiction full time.

Whitfield became one of the most prolific writers associated with Black Mask, publishing hundreds of short stories and serials in pulp magazines. He wrote aviation adventures, hard-boiled crime fiction, and stories featuring Jo Gar, a Filipino detective, sometimes using the pen names Ramon Decolta and Temple Field. His best-known books include Green Ice (1930) and Death in a Bowl (1931).

His writing career slowed sharply in the 1930s. Whitfield later lived in a veterans hospital while suffering from tuberculosis and died in Los Angeles on January 24, 1945. He is remembered as an important, if often overlooked, figure in the early hard-boiled tradition.