Ричард Скотт Пратер

Ричард Пратер - американский писатель.

Родился в Санта-Ане, Калифорния. После окончания колледжа работал в торговом флоте, служил на авиационной базе, выращивал фрукты на собственной ферме. Его первый роман "Дело об исчезнувшей красотке" был издан в 1950 году.

Упоминание о Пратере состоялось - если бы не имя автора на обложке книг и не имя главного героя, можно было бы приписать все его книги другим ветеранам "черного" жанра. Увлекательно. Помогает достичь Нирваны - в голове после чтения чистая страница.

Несмотря на всю его "невыносимую легкость" (а может быть благодаря ей), Пратер был одним из самых продаваемых авторов. В списке 150 бестселлеров последней трети двадцатого века его романы занимали 16 строчек.

Richard Scott Prather was an American mystery novelist, best known for creating the "Shell Scott" series. He also wrote under the pseudonyms David Knight and Douglas Ring.

Prather was born in Santa Ana, California and spent a year at Riverside Junior College (now Riverside Community College). 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 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.
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. Prather's final book, Shellshock, was published in hardcover in 1987 by Tor Books. He donated his papers to the Richard S. Prather Manuscript Collection at the University of Wyoming, in Laramie, Wyoming.
At the time of Prather's death, he had his last unpublished Shell Scott Mystery complete manuscript. It was published October 2011, in print and ebook formats by Pendleton Artists, with permission of the Richard S. Prather Estate and Linda Pendleton.
Prather's wife, Tina, died in April 2004, after 58 years of marriage.