When Cancelled in Red debuted in 1939, it was the $1,000 Red Badge Prize Mystery winner, and received the $10,000 prize for the Dodd Mead Mystery Contest.
The novel was serialized in six weekly issues of Argosy, an iconic pulp magazine, and published by Dodd, Mead & Company in hardcover and paperback.
Cancelled in Red marked the debut of “Hugh Pentecost,” a pen name of Judson P. Philips, a prolific author of mystery fiction. He continued writing for the pulp under his own name, while selling to the better-paying slick magazines as “Pentecost.”
Inspector Luke Bradley appeared in four novels, and in four short stories published in The American Magazine — “Death Wears a Copper Necktie” (Nov. 1944) and “Trail of the Vulture” (June 1956) were original stories. “Two Were Missing,” (Oct. 1940) was expanded into The 24th Horse. “Mission to Murder” (Jan. 1943 was an abbreviated version of The Brass Chills.
The 1939 Dodd, Mead & Company paperback was the source for this edition’s text.