author
Ray Humphreys
Best known for brisk, puzzle-like Western stories, this pulp-era writer gave frontier action a detective’s sense of timing. His tales often center on Sheriff Shorty McKay, mixing dry humor, danger, and sharp twists.
4 Audiobooks
One jump ahead
by Ray Humphreys
![Fools and mules : [A Shorty McKay story]](https://listenly.io/api/img/6a1011a1d526f8ed6efe859c/cover.jpg)
Fools and mules : [A Shorty McKay story]
by Ray Humphreys
The old "yaller" shirt
by Ray Humphreys
A knife in time
by Ray Humphreys
About the author
Ray Humphreys was an American pulp writer whose work appeared in Western Story Magazine and related pulp publications during the 1920s and 1930s. He is especially associated with Sheriff Shorty McKay, a recurring lawman featured in many of his stories, and modern library listings show a substantial body of surviving fiction, including works now available through Project Gutenberg.
His fiction stands out for blending Western settings with mystery plotting. Booksellers and pulp references describe Hunch (1934) as his only mystery novel, while story indexes and reprint descriptions point to a long run of Shorty McKay adventures that brought a detective-story rhythm to frontier action.
Reliable biographical detail about his personal life is limited in the sources I could confirm, so it is safest to remember him mainly through the work itself: a productive magazine storyteller whose Westerns were lively, suspenseful, and built to keep pages turning.