Talmage Powell (1920–2000) was one of the all-time great mystery writers of the pulp magazines (and later the digest mystery magazines). He claimed to have written more than 500 short stories, and we have no reason to doubt him — we are working on a bibliography of his work and have documented 373 magazine stories so far... and who knows how many are out there under pseudonyms or buried in obscure magazines? He wrote his first novel, The Smasher, in 1959. He went on to pen 11 more novels under his own name, 4 as “Ellery Queen,” and 2 novelizations of the hit TV series Mission: Impossible. Clearly, though short stories were his first love.