Mycroft & Moran Mycroft & Moran Mycroft & Moran was an imprint of Arkham House publishers and was created in Sauk City, Wisconsin in 1945. The imprint was created to publish weird detective stories and the Solar Pons stories by August Derleth. Arkham retired the imprint in 1982, but has recently allowed it to be revived by another small press publisher. The name of the Mycroft & Moran imprint was derived from two characters in the Sherlock Holmes stories. Mycroft is derived from the name of Sherlock Holmes' brother, Mycroft Holmes. Moran refers to Colonel Sebastian Moran, "the second most dangerous man in
Detective fiction whose V. I. Warshawski books have explored the various subcultures of Chicago. Martin Hewitt, created by British author Arthur Morrison in 1894, is one of the first examples of the modern style of fictional private detective. This character is described as an "'Everyman' detective meant to challenge the detective-as-superman that Holmes represented." By the late 1920s, Al Capone and the Mob were inspiring not only fear, but piquing mainstream curiosity about the American crime underworld. Popular pulp fiction magazines like "Black Mask" capitalized on this, as authors such as Carrol John Daly published violent stories that focused on the mayhem