Repeat Performance: The Return of William O'Farrell (1904-1962), Midcentury Crime Fiction Noirist

William O'Farrell in his late thirtiesHow many crime writers publish their first novel when pushing forty? PD James was 42. Raymond Chandler had passed fifty. Dashiell Hammett was 35. So perhaps pushing forty isn't so exceptional. Life makes its exactions on one, to be sure.In any event, author William O'Farrell, as he called himself, was a few days shy of 38 when his debut crime novel, Repeat Performance, was published in November 1942. The originality--an actor embroiled in a murder gets to live the last year of his life over--and genuine quality of the novel won it considerable favorable notice from reviewers and in 1947 it was, somewhat altered, made into a film starring Louis Hayward and Joan Leslie. O'Farrell, who had not published a crime novel (or any novel) since Repeat Performance, the year after the release of the film version of his debut novel suddenly published two more of them. It was the beginning of his relatively brief highly productive period as a crime novelist.…