Ellery Queen wrote: "Whitfield is a much too neglected member of the Hammett-Chandler hardboiled school." Dashiell Hammett himself praised the Whitfield stories for their "naked action pounded into tough compactness by staccato, hammerlike writing." Previously announced but long delayed (as we searched for more stories) Jo Gar's Casebook is the first collection of Whitfield's extraordinary tales. In the February 1930 issue of Black Mask, a new character was introduced to the American detective story. Jo Gar was both a classic "thinking" sleuth and a tough man of action who inhabited an exotic noir world on the Philippines, facing a rogue's gallery
