Who was Steve Harragan?  He was a hardboiled private investigator who was the main character of a handful of paperback detective novels that were all published in 1952 and 1953.  Though his adventures were not much different from those of any other P.I. of the pulp era, Steve Harragan has a cult following for two reasons.

First off, the author of Harragan’s adventures was also named Steve Harragan.  Did the author Steve Harragan name the character after himself or was “Steve Harragan” just a pseudonym for another author or perhaps several authors?  No one knows for sure, though all of Harragan’s novel were written in the first person.

Secondly, Steve Harragan the Detective only has one eye.  In almost every cover, he’s featured wearing an eye patch.

Here are a few of the Steve Harragan covers.  As always, the artist has been identified when known:

Author Unknown

Author Unknown

Author Unknown

by Bernard Safran

by Walter Popp

Author unknown. I’m not sure which one of these men is meant to be Harragan but you’ll notice that the eyepatch got left out of this cover.