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Big-Nose Charlie. Big-Nose Charlie was created by Charles W. Tyler (Blue Jean Billy, Dewlap & Wattles, Hiram Pertwee (I), Hiram Pertwee (II), Baldy Sours) and appeared in forty-three stories in Detective Story Magazine from 1917 to 1932, beginning with “Big-Nose Charlie’s Get Away” (Detective Story Magazine, Apr. 5, 1917).

Big-Nose Charlie is a thief who, though occasionally relying on the more artistic forms of crime such as mail fraud, customarily uses strong-arm tactics to get his swag. His crimes are not usually imaginative—he’ll request a private interview with his target, hit them on the head, steal the money and run—and his goals aren’t high–$3,000 is about the upper limit of his takes. Charlie, who the police report describes as “hair well streaked with gray, large and prominent nose, with coarse pores, gray eyes, several gold teeth. Six feet tall,” is from “Kerry Village, Boston” and speaks in a patois that is dated but memorable: “Yu look forward t’keep fr’m lammin’ int’ trouble, but yuh flicker yuh glim behint so’s trouble won’t run yuh down.”

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