Brains Benton

Last updated

Written in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Brains Benton Mysteries chronicle the adventures of young teenagers Barclay "Brains" Benton (X) and his friend James "Jimmy" Carson (Operative Three); they together form the "Benton and Carson International Detective Agency." The Brains Benton books are similar in tone to The Mad Scientists' Club books.

Contents

The series was originally published by the Golden Press, with reprints being done in the same format by Whitman Books, both imprints of Western Publishing. All six titles appeared in hardback with only two volumes being reprinted in paperback.

Characters

Main Characters

Barclay "Brains" Benton is the central character in the series. He is in his early teens at the beginning of the series. Tall and thin, with glasses and red hair, Brains is knowledgeable beyond his years. He talks in polysyllabics and his mind is a warehouse of scientific and social information. He would be regarded by the other boys in school as nerdy, except that he is also the star pitcher for the school baseball team (He's not a sports fan--he is intrigued with the physiology of baseball pitching). His parents, professors at the local college, have allowed him the use of the room over the garage, which he has converted into a crime lab, calling it his "inner sanctum."

James MacDonald "Jimmy" Carson is Brains' partner. He narrates the action in the stories. Together they form the Benton and Carson International Detective Agency, for which they actually have elegant business cards. Jimmy is the opposite of Brains in many ways--average height and build, he has a paper route for the local newspaper, the Crestwood Daily Ledger. Because of his average appearance, he is well suited to tailing suspects. Jimmy adds a dimension of down-to-earth common sense to many of Brains' ideas and theories as they work on various cases.

Secondary characters

Ann Carson is Jimmy's seventeen-year-old big sister.

Mrs. Ray is the Benton's housekeeper. Loud, nosy, and opinionated, she is an excellent cook.

"Stinky" Green is Jimmy's friend, who substitutes for him on his newspaper route when necessary.

"Stony" Rhodes is another boy Jimmy's age, the neighborhood nuisance. He wants to join the detective agency, but neither Brains nor Jimmy think he has the necessary ability.

"Horsey" Peters is the Crestwood School principal.

Chief Hadley is the pompous Chief of Police in Crestwood.

Lew Jarman is the star reporter for the Crestwood Daily Ledger.

Also there are Jimmy's parents and Brains' parents. Jimmy's mother is the typical mother/housewife of the late 1950s, and his father works as an accountant for the gas company. Brains' father is a history professor at Crestwood College, and his mother teaches art there.


Titles

  1. The Case of the Missing Message (1959). When Jimmy braves the spooky old Madden place, he spots a boy in hiding. Thinking he's kidnapped, he and Brains sneak in and foil a real kidnapper, while rescue arrives atop a stampeding elephant!
  2. The Case of the Counterfeit Coin (1960). When Jimmy receives an "ancient" Greek coin on his paper route, he and Brains are stalked by mysterious strangers out to steal it back and a feisty girl with a mean right hook!
  3. The Case of the Stolen Dummy (1961). When the boys venture to creepy Boiling Lake, they spot a submerged car - with a body inside - and end up chasing crooks on a wild midnight ride in a hot rod!
  4. The Case of the Roving Rolls (1961). When the boys meet a Rolls-Royce on the run and a real prince with a problem, they finally use the "international" in "Benton and Carson International Detective Agency"!
  5. The Case of the Waltzing Mouse (1961). When the boys help an old man with a traveling animal act, they end up scuba diving for "treasure" and barely survive a boat chase in the "Battle of Lake Carmine"!
  6. The Case of the Painted Dragon (1961). When the boys meet a new classmate, an orphaned Japanese boy with a Sumo bodyguard, they're pitched into a search for missing pearls and a conspiracy of dangerous thugs.

The books were written by Charles Spain Verral. However, after book #1, all of the remaining books had the pen name of George Wyatt as author. Verral had turned over the writing to another author but was not pleased with the results; he then took the outlines of each book and rewrote them. [1]

Later volumes by other authors

Charles Spain Verral's characters have inspired a generation of twenty-first century authors who endeavor to continue the Brains Benton series.

By Charles E. Morgan III:

  1. The Case of the Carrier Pigeon (2006)
  2. The Case of the Lost Loot (2004)
  3. The Case of the Stolen Jewelry (2009)
  4. The Case of The Final Message (2011)
  5. The Case of the Disappearing Magician (2014)
  6. The Case of the Crossed Wire (2016)
  7. The Case of the Aviator's Plans (2017)
  8. The Case of the Crooked Deal (2018)
  9. The Case of the Spy's Revenge (2018)
  10. The Case of the Ghost Town's Secret (2020)
  11. The Case of the Templar's Sword (2021)
  12. The Adventures of Benton and Carson (2016) This is a series of six short stories. The first one describes the case in which Jimmy first meets Brains on the roof of the school building. A later story is actually narrated by Brains himself, and includes some surprising comments about his partner. There are also stories set at Christmas and Veteran's Day.

By Fred Rexroad

  1. The Case of the Wounded Pigeon (2008)

By Scott Lockwood:

  1. The Case of the Courier Cat (2010)
  2. A Scandal at Crestwood College (2010)
  3. Brains Benton and the Subtraction Mystery (2010)
  4. Brains Benton and the Case of the Other Missing Message (2016)

The last two of these are set later in time, when Brains and Jimmy are adults. Brains has taken a position with SwifTech Labs (headed by non other than Tom Swift Jr.) and has a girlfriend who is an investigative reporter.

By Thomas Hudson:

  1. The Case of the Insane Woman Down Memory Lane (2015)

By Sean Murphy:

  1. The Case of the Dancing Walrus (2015). Contains three stories.
  2. The Case of the Haunted Airplane (2021)

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Detective fiction</span> Subgenre of crime and mystery fiction

Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as speculative fiction and other genre fiction in the mid-nineteenth century and has remained extremely popular, particularly in novels. Some of the most famous heroes of detective fiction include C. Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, and Hercule Poirot. Juvenile stories featuring The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and The Boxcar Children have also remained in print for several decades.

<i>Encyclopedia Brown</i> Book series

Encyclopedia Brown is a series of books featuring the adventures of boy detective Leroy Brown, nicknamed "Encyclopedia" for his intelligence and range of knowledge. The series of 29 children's novels was written by Donald J. Sobol, with the first book published in 1963 and the last published posthumously in 2012. In addition to the main books, the Encyclopedia Brown series has spawned a comic strip, a TV series, and compilation books of puzzles and games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nancy Drew</span> Fictional character in a juvenile mystery series

Nancy Drew is a fictional character appearing in several mystery book series, movies, video games, and a TV show as a teenage amateur sleuth. The books are ghostwritten by a number of authors and published under the collective pseudonym Carolyn Keene. Created by the publisher Edward Stratemeyer as the female counterpart to his Hardy Boys series, the character first appeared in 1930 in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series, which lasted until 2003 and consisted of 175 novels.

Ellery Queen is a pseudonym created in 1929 by American crime fiction writers Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee and the name of their main fictional character, a mystery writer in New York City who helps his police inspector father solve baffling murders. Dannay and Lee wrote most of the more than thirty novels and several short story collections in which Ellery Queen appeared as a character, and their books were among the most popular of American mysteries published between 1929 and 1971. In addition to the fiction featuring their eponymous brilliant amateur detective, the two men acted as editors: as Ellery Queen they edited more than thirty anthologies of crime fiction and true crime, and Dannay founded and for many decades edited Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, which has been published continuously from 1941 to the present. From 1961, Dannay and Lee also commissioned other authors to write crime thrillers using the Ellery Queen nom de plume, but not featuring Ellery Queen as a character; several juvenile novels were credited to Ellery Queen, Jr. Finally, the prolific duo wrote four mysteries under the pseudonym Barnaby Ross.

Albert Campion is a fictional character in a series of detective novels and short stories by Margery Allingham. He first appeared as a supporting character in The Crime at Black Dudley (1929), an adventure story involving a ring of criminals, and would go on to feature in another 18 novels and over 20 short stories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sexton Blake</span> Fictional British detective who appeared in numerous publications

Sexton Blake is a fictional character, a detective who has been featured in many British comic strips, novels and dramatic productions since 1893. Sexton Blake adventures were featured in a wide variety of British and international publications from 1893 to 1978, comprising more than 4,000 stories by some 200 different authors. Blake was also the hero of numerous silent and sound films, radio serials, and a 1960s ITV television series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franklin W. Dixon</span> House pseudonym used by the Stratemeyer Syndicate

Franklin W. Dixon is the pen name used by a variety of different authors who were part of a team that wrote The Hardy Boys novels for the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Dixon was also the writer attributed for the Ted Scott Flying Stories series, published by Grosset & Dunlap.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Continental Op</span> Fictional character created by Dashiell Hammett

The Continental Op is a fictional character created by Dashiell Hammett. He is a private investigator employed as an operative of the Continental Detective Agency's San Francisco office. The stories are all told in the first person and his name is never given.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slam Bradley</span> Fictional comic book character

Samuel Emerson "Slam" Bradley is a fictional character that has appeared in various comic book series published by DC Comics. He is a private detective who exists in DC's main shared universe. The character concept was created by DC Comics founder Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson. The character was developed by collaboration of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who both later became more well known as the co-creators of Superman. As one of the first ever DC characters, the character first appears in the Golden Age of Comic Books in the anthology title Detective Comics, being introduced in the first issue. He later commonly was associated with Batman and other spinoff Batman characters when revived.

<i>The Hidden Harbor Mystery</i>

The Hidden Harbor Mystery is Volume 14 in the original The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories published by Grosset & Dunlap.

Cecil John Charles Street, who was known to his colleagues, family and friends as John Street, began his military career as an artillery officer in the British Army. During the course of World War I, he became a propagandist for MI7, in which role he held the rank of Major. After the armistice, he alternated between Dublin and London during the Irish War of Independence as Information Officer for Dublin Castle, working closely with Lionel Curtis. He later earned his living as a prolific writer of detective novels.

<i>Sherlock Holmes</i> (1984 TV series) British TV series

Sherlock Holmes is the overall title given to the series of Sherlock Holmes adaptations produced by the British television company Granada Television between 1984 and 1994. The first two series were shown under the title The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and were followed by subsequent series with the titles of other short story collections by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Charles Spain Verral was a writer and illustrator born in Ontario, Canada. He wrote Street & Smith's Bill Barnes pulp series novels, among others. Among the most widely read of his books are the Brains Benton Mysteries, a six-book series published from 1959 to 1961. He also published many other children's works, including Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, and Popeye.

<i>Nancy Drew: Girl Detective</i> Book series

Nancy Drew: Girl Detective is a 2004-2012 book series which replaced the long-running Nancy Drew mystery series. This new series is written in first person narration, from Nancy's point of view, and features updated versions of the main Nancy Drew characters. New secondary characters are introduced to populate River Heights and appear over multiple books, adding a framework to Nancy's world.

<i>The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries</i> American television series

The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries is an American television mystery series based on the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew juvenile novels. The series, which ran from January 30, 1977, to January 14, 1979, was produced by Glen A. Larson from Universal Television for ABC. Parker Stevenson and Shaun Cassidy starred as amateur detective brothers Frank and Joe Hardy, respectively, while Pamela Sue Martin starred as amateur sleuth Nancy Drew.

<i>Tin Goyenda</i> Series of juvenile detective novels written by Rakib Hasan

Tin Goyenda is a series of juvenile detective novels written by Rakib Hasan and published in Bangladesh by Sheba Prokashoni. The Tin Goyenda series is a subseries of Kishore Thriller series of Sheba Prokashoni. Apart from Tin Goyenda, Kishore Thriller Adventure is another subseries. The books were made into a TV series in 2014, where the main protagonist 'Kishore Pasha' was starred by Kabyo Shagore Nurul Momen.

The Invisible Detective is a series of juvenile adventure novels, written by Justin Richards. Originally published in the United Kingdom between 2003 and 2005, the series has also been released in the United States.

Vera Charlesworth Barclay (1893–1989) co-founder of Cubs 1916, was an English pioneer of Scouting and an author. She was an early exponent of female leadership in the Scout movement and played a leading role in the introduction of the Wolf Cub programme for younger boys, both in the United Kingdom and in France. Barclay wrote numerous children's stories and instructional Scouting handbooks, and in later life wrote about her Christian faith.

References

  1. The Brains Benton Mystery Books by Don Holbrook article. "Charles Verral passed away in 1991 or 1992. In a letter to Fred Woodworth, Mr. Verral stated that, despite the names on the later books in the series, he wrote virtually the whole series."