MARK CORRIGAN

Mark Corrigan is a private investigator and sometime agent for the U.S. government.

When he isn't globe-trotting about the world, he occasionally makes his home in Philadelphia, the city in which he grew up. As a youth he belonged to a rough Dead-End style gang, becoming its leader before reaching adulthood and giving it up to become a private eye. He worked that profession for a few years until Pearl Harbor and he joined the military.

Seeing his former vocation and learning his skills at ferreting out trouble and taking care of it afterwards, Corrigan was assigned to Military Intelligence. For many months he fought with the Maquis in France undercover and then ended the War tracking down spies and sympathizers. When the hostilities ended and he was released from duty, he hung around London doing an odd job or two before heading back to Philly and his former job.

For several years/adventures, Corrigan remains a private eye though his assignments, often for the American government, took his around the world. Eventually, an offer of full time employment came and Corrigan, loving the travel and the danger, took it. From then on, he was a fully licensed agent. There would be no way to call him a secret agent, however, because Corrigan had been making it a practice to write about and publish the details (names changed when necessary) of his cases.

For much of the adventures, Corrigan shared the danger and excitement with the lovely Tucker McLean, a pint-sized beauty who has the same tenacity as Corrigan. They become devoted lovers even though Corrigan continues to chase every female who comes within reach.

The eponymously published Corrigan adventures were written by Norman (Harold) Lee.

In all the series that I have studied, there have a fair number of spies who have changed professions inside the series. Usually it is quitting the agency they work for and becoming a civilian but there are a few in which they join the agency. In this series, Corrigan pretty much does both.

Initially he is a private eye. This is during the period when private eyes were very much in vogue. After the popularity of the secret agent grew, thanks to Bond, Corrigan is offered a full-time position as an agent, not a huge leap since he'd been doing the odd assignment already. But then at the end of the run, when apparently the author felt a new direction was needed, he quit and became a corporate troubleshooter. He should have stayed a spy.

And he should have never let Tucker McLean get away!!!! If you read the series, you'll understand why I am so upset. I mean, come on! Nobody lets someone like Tucker walk out. I don't care if this IS fiction! Gee!!