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Francis M. (Mike) Nevins Patron Saint of Ramble House Mike Nevins has almost singlehandedly rescued Harry Stephen Keeler from a literary grave. When the rest of the world was content with forgetting HSK, Mike wrote a series of articles for the Armchair Detective magazine back in 1970 that re-introduced him to modern readers. Then, when Ramble House began its feeble project of reprinting Keeler, Mike lent his hand with advice, suggestions, hard-to-find copies of HSK's books, and most importantly, copies of the actual typewritten manuscripts of the books Harry wrote, but never had published. He knows more about HSK than any living man -- except maybe Richard Polt of the HSK Society -- and has been exceptionally generous with his time and energy. Here's more about Mike, taken from his book about Ellery Queen's radio shows, The Sound of Detection.

Francis M. Nevins is a professor at St. Louis University School of Law, where he has taught since 1971. In addition to his writings on legal subjects he is the author of six mystery novels: PUBLISH AND PERISH (1975), CORRUPT AND ENSNARE (1978), THE 120-HOUR CLOCK (1986), THE NINETY MILLION DOLLAR MOUSE (1987), INTO THE SAME RIVER TWICE (1996) and BENEFICIARIES’ REQUIEM (2000). He has also written about forty short stories which have appeared in ELLERY QUEEN, ALFRED HITCHCOCK and other national magazines and many of which have been reprinted in leading mystery anthologies. A collection of his shorter fiction, NIGHT OF SILKEN SNOW AND OTHER STORIES, was published in 2001, and a second collection, LEAP DAY AND OTHER STORIES, is scheduled for early 2003. He has edited more than 15 mystery anthologies and collections and has written several nonfiction books on the genre. Two of these nonfiction titles – ROYAL BLOODLINE: ELLERY QUEEN, AUTHOR AND DETECTIVE (1974) and CORNELL WOOLR1CH: FIRST YOU DREAM, THEN YOU DIE (1988) – have won him Edgar awards from Mystery Writers of America. He has written articles, book reviews and similar short pieces on mystery fiction for newspapers, magazines and reference works. He has also published many articles dealing with movies and four books on the same subject: THE FILMS OF HOPALONG CASSIDY (1988), THE FILMS OF THE CISCO KID (1998), JOSEPH H. LEWIS: OVERVIEW, INTERVIEW AND FILMOGRAPHY (1998) and PAUL LANDRES: A DIRECTOR'S STORIES (2000).