Though clearly in the Dashiell Hammett-Raymond Chandler tradition, Thomas B. Dewey was also a forerunner of the more sensitive school of hard-boiled private-detective fiction that took hold in the 1970s. Yet, Mac, Dewey's best series character, is also as hard-edged and tough as his fictional colleagues. Dewey wrote when most of his contemporaries were either staunchly right-wing, as were Mickey Spillane, Cleve F. Adams, and Richard S. Prather, or apolitical. He was an exception, creating a private detective aware of what was happening in the world, yet unashamedly liberal and compassionate. Dewey consistently addressed the political and social issues of his day but never resorted to polemics.

Thomas Blanchard Dewey was born in Elkhart, Indiana, on 6 March 1915, a distant relative of Admiral George Dewey of Spanish-American War fame. His father taught English at the college level; his mother was a homemaker. Dewey graduated from Kansas State Teachers College...