Ray Humphreys

Ray Humphreys was an American popular-fiction writer whose work appeared in the pulp era, especially in Western stories centered on Sheriff Shorty McKay. Several of those stories have been preserved through Project Gutenberg, which helps show how widely his frontier mysteries continued to circulate long after their original magazine publication.

Reliable bookseller and catalog records also point to a life beyond fiction. Humphreys was reported to have graduated in Notre Dame's first journalism class, worked as a police reporter, and later served as chief investigator in the Denver district attorney's office. That background fits the practical, crime-savvy feel of his writing.

He also wrote the novel Hunch, described in book-trade records as his only mystery novel. Taken together, his surviving stories suggest a writer who liked combining Western settings with clues, pursuit, and the hard-earned instincts of lawmen and investigators.