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O’Dell, Mike. Mike O’Dell was created by Roger Torrey (Bryant, Johnny Carr, Johnny Cass, Shean Connell, Sam Drake, Mickey Hanigan, George Killeen, Pat McCarthy, Dal Prentice, John Ryan) and appeared in four stories in Black Mask in 1935 and 1936, beginning with “Beginner’s Luck” (Black Mask, Jan. 1935).

Mike O’Dell is a former wrestler turned bodyguard. He works as a bodyguard for Felix Mihalek, a wealthy local man, but Mihalek is involved in some marginally dirty business, so O’Dell is forced to run errands for Mihalek (delivering $50K in lost bets, for example) and occasionally solve crimes or settle grudges. O’Dell is hard-boiled, and while he’s not particularly intelligent he’s persistent, very tough, and hardheaded both literally and figuratively.

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