SECRET AGENT X-9

Secret Agent X-9 is an agent with the FBI.

His real name is a mystery, at first. He is observed telling people to call him Dexter at the beginning of the first recorded adventure but he does not specify whether that is a first or last name and he does add the unusual caveat, "It's not my name but it'll do." For something that may or may not be accurate, it is used a fair amount for a while, with him even being called 'Mr. Dexter' more than once. He answers to it readily though in the second adventure, he asks at a train station ticket booth for tickets under the name of Jenkins.

In addition to the mystery of his name there is the initial uncertainty of his employment. That he has some authority is plain to see by the way he deals with the local police but he is referred to as a detective by several people, not agent. In the fourth case things start to get cleared up when he is said to be a 'G' man and in the fifth he receives a telegram from D.C. congratulating him on the fine work he has just finished and requesting he head immediately to the next case; the wire was signed 'J.E.H.'. After a couple more cases, it becomes certain that he works for the FBI and he will stay with that organization for a considerable number of adventures. Eventually he will once again do through a period when his employer is not so cut-and-dry (the Goodwin/williamson era) when the type of missions he goes on, and the quality of people he goes up against, show no doubt that he has stopped being a G-Man and has become, again, a secret agent. Along the way, we would learn that his real name ceases to be an enigma as we discover it is Phil Corrigan. No longer would people refer to him as X-9 but simply as Corrigan.

In the 3rd adventure we learn from X-9, Dexter/Corrigan, that he "had a little girl once ... and her mother was young and pretty. They died - bullets meant for me. I swore vengeance on all criminals ... I have devoted my life to fighting crime." After that statement, the operative would go through a period where he had no romantic relationships and did not miss it (undoubtedly still grieving). Eventually he would start dating two different women for a time and would, after a lengthy courtship, ask novelist Wilda Dorray to be his wife. They would marry, eventually produce a daughter named Philda, and then gradually grow apart - his constantly being away from home had to have been a factor but his changing jobs to become a covert operative might also have played a role. After their divorce, Corrigan/X-9 would again be available and several different women will find him alluring, though a couple of them had homicide as their ultimate goal.

Good line:
- Said by X-9: "What this country needs is an invention to get rid of reporters."
- Said to X-9 by his Chief: "Remember, an agent shouldn't trust his wife or his sweetheart."
- Said by X-9: "No case is too exciting once you've written it out in triplicate."

Any series that has been done by different people over the course of many decades will likely have a wide range of good and bad. IMHO, the adventures of Secret Agent X-9, aka Agent Corrigan, aka Phil Corrigan, ranged from awesome to not bad.

Having had the pleasure of reading a tremendous number of the story arcs, thanks to the Internet, I will admit to some being less than stellar though never bad but some, especially those of the Goodwin/Williamson era were awesomely entertaining, so much so that I bought all 5 of the hardbound collections. I also paid money to get the original run of Hammett/Raymond tales as well as the last collection of George Evans. Being cheap as I am, that says something about how much I enjoyed this series.

For a Grade, I gave it an A- for the overall oeuvre. The Goodwin/Williamson definitely deserve an A+ but there are stretches of others that warrant of B or B-.