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Brady, Old King. Old King Brady was created by “A New York Detective,” the pseudonym of Francis Worcester Doughty, and appeared in around 830 stories in four dime novels from 1885 to 1912, beginning with “Old King Brady the Sleuth-Hound” (The New York Detective Library, November 14, 1885).

Old King Brady is a Superhuman. James “Old King” Brady is a famous private detective in New York City whose nickname is given to him by his clients, who believe he is the “king” of the profession. He is based in New York City but is active around the United States, particularly in the Old West, where he goes after Billy the Kid, in thirty-one separate instances, Frank and Jesse James. Brady is not particularly smart and is no physical superhuman. “Old King Brady does no theorizing from slender clews...he proceeds in a common way, just as a real detective would, with plenty of leg work, a bit of good old Irish luck, and a liberal use of stool pigeons.” When the plot requires it, Brady displays a “mystic” or “intuitive” gift, supposedly a part of his Irish heritage. Among his enemies is the mandarin Yellow Peril Hi-Lo-Jak, head of a gang of kidnapers and assassins.

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