Richard S. Prather
Richard Scott Prather (September 9, 1921 – February 14, 2007[1]) was an American mystery novelist, best known for creating the "Shell Scott" series.[2] He also wrote under the pseudonyms David Knight and Douglas Ring.
Richard S. Prather
Richard Scott Prather
September 9, 1921
Santa Ana, California, U.S.
February 14, 2007 (aged 85)
David Knight
Douglas Ring
Biography[edit]
Prather was born in Santa Ana, California[2] and spent a year at Riverside Junior College (now Riverside Community College).[3] He served in the United States Merchant Marine during World War II, from 1942 through the end of the war, in 1945. That year he married Tina Hager and began working as a civilian chief clerk of surplus property at March Air Force Base[4] in Riverside, California. He left that job to become a full-time writer in 1949. The first Shell Scott mystery, Case of the Vanishing Beauty, was published in 1950. It would be the start of a long series that numbered more than three dozen titles featuring the Shell Scott character.
At Prather's death in 2007, he had completed but not published his last Shell Scott Mystery. His final novel, The Death Gods, was published October 2011, in print and ebook formats by Pendleton Artists, with permission of the Richard S. Prather Estate and Linda Pendleton.
Publisher[edit]
Prather had a disagreement with his publisher, Pocket Books, and sued them in 1975. He gave up writing for several years and grew avocados. In 1986, he returned with The Amber Effect. In 1987, Prather's penultimate book, Shellshock, was published in hardcover by Tor Books. He donated his papers to the Richard S. Prather Manuscript Collection at the University of Wyoming, in Laramie, Wyoming.