Raoul Whitfield (1896–1945) was an American writer best known for hard-boiled crime fiction published in pulp magazines during the 1920s and 1930s. Born in New York City, he served in the United States Army during the First World War before turning to journalism, fiction, and later screenwriting in Hollywood. Whitfield became a prominent contributor to Black Mask and other detective pulps, helping define the terse, violent, fast-moving style associated with early hard-boiled fiction. His recurring characters included Jo Gar, a Chinese-Hawaiian detective, and the cynical private investigator Mal Ourney. His novels include Green Ice, Death in a Bowl, The Virgin Kills, and The Devil and the Deep Sea. Although less widely remembered than contemporaries such as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Whitfield was an influential craftsman of pulp crime writing, noted for sharp dialogue, bleak urban settings, and stories shaped by corruption, desperation, and betrayal. He died in Los Angeles in 1945.
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