Dead Horse

by Walter Satterthwait

The front page of The New York Times, May 26, 1935, carried notice of the passing of one Mrs. Emily Davies Vanderbilt Thayer Whitfield. Observers of the social scene in the United States in the seven decades since the Great Depression will certainly recognize the Vanderbilt name. If they happen to be readers of mystery fiction, and especially its sub-genre known as “the hard-boiled school”—the style more or less invented by the great Dashiell Hammett in the early 1920s—they might also recognize the name of Emily’s final husband as Black Mask star Raoul Whitfield, primarily a pulp magazine scribe who was almost certainly, for a period in the mid- to late-1920s, the most highly paid mystery writer in the country. He got his start, after serving in the Army Air Corps during the latter part of WWI, by writing dozens of “air combat” tales for that very popular sub-genre of pulp magazine; then, having developed a very staccato, “hard-boiled” style of his own, moved on into the even more lucrative crime fiction magazines, the apex of which was, of course, Black Mask.

Dead Horse, the novel, is titled after the ranch that Emily and Raoul built near Las Vegas, New Mexico, completed in 1933, replete with polo field and tennis courts. They lived a lavish, jazz-age lifestyle in their high-desert redoubt, throwing elaborate parties where guests arrived from New York, Los Angeles, and various European capitals. This all ended abruptly, barely three months after the couple had separated in early 1935, with Emily’s “suicide.”

Novelist Walter Satterthwait lived in New Mexico for over 20 years, and became familiar with Emily and Raoul’s tragic lives during that time. He decided to research their story himself, and to write a speculative novel about them. His research turned out to be extensive, including long hours and days sifting through the San Miguel County archives, as well as the archives of several major newspapers (including The New York Times), and conducting dozens of interviews with people who had lived in Las Vegas, N.M. during the 1930s and who were either friends of, or knew more than just casually, Emily and Raoul (and also Lois Bell, the local barmaid Raoul married after Emily’s death). He uncovered many previously unknown facts (and a good deal of speculation!) about the couple and what had “really” happened to end Emily’s life in 1935.

Here then, for the reader in 2006, is a look back at the life of a real flapper-era socialite and her ladies’-man-cum-hard-boiled-pulp-writer husband, burning the candle at both ends and in the middle, spending a fortune during what the rest of the country was experiencing as the Great Depression, and paying the ultimate price for their follies.

It’s truly a hell of a story and a hell of a book!

182 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Walter Satterthwait (b. 1946) was an author of mysteries and historical fiction. A fan of mystery novels from a young age, he spent high school immersed in the works of Dashiell Hammett and Mickey Spillane. While working as a bartender in New York in the late 1970s, he wrote his first book: an adventure novel, Cocaine Blues (1979), about a drug dealer on the run from a pair of killers.

After his second thriller, The Aegean Affair (1982), Satterthwait created his best-known character, Santa Fe private detective Joshua Croft. Beginning with Wall of Glass (1988), Satterthwait wrote five Croft novels, concluding the series with 1996’s Accustomed to the Dark. In between Croft books, he wrote mysteries starring historical figures, including Miss Lizzie (1989), a novel about Lizzie Borden, and Wilde West (1991), a western mystery starring Oscar Wilde. His most recent novel is Dead Horse (2007), an account of the mysterious death of Depression-era pulp writer Raoul Whitfield. 

Reviews

[Bonnye Reed · Rating 4 out of 5]

A New Mexico tale dating from the late 20's early 30's, this novel by Walter Satterthwait is a fictionalization of the legends surrounding the Dead Horse Ranch and the lives of Raoul Whitfield, arthor of the Black Mask crime fiction pulp magazines, and his wives Emily Davies Vanderbilt Thayer Whitfield and Lois Bell Whitfield. A sad tale, but a good picture of the extreme diversities of the lives of depression era peoples, even in a place as isolated and poor as New Mexico. I enjoyed the return to the film noir detective style of writing, and the vital telling of these tales of the past.

[Sheila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Satterthwait is one of my favorites. A masterful storyteller, this time he adapts a true crime story to a fictionalized retelling of events. We have a multi-married society couple, a failing writer, a floozy, drugs, sex, money ...in other words, a story similar to the ones written by Raoul Whitfield. Loved it

[Barbm1020 · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly pedestrian 30's rich & famous scenario, police procedural. Not very interesting. Only finished because it's a very short book.

[Tammy]

Recommended in the book Tolstoy and the Purple Chair.