Re - RARA-AVIS: Why Are You Here?

From: james.doherty@gsa.gov
Date: 28 Jan 2000


If there's a primal event that explains my particular answer to this question, I guess it might be that my first exposure to detective fiction was HB.

Before I could even read myself, my dad was reading *Dick Tracy* to me every Sunday. *Tracy*'s always been a seminal example of HB mystery, despite its medium being the comic strip rather than prose fiction, and Gould was responding to the same kind of environment (unchecked gangsterism, economic depression, both recently ended and impending world wars, etc.) that fueld the engines of Hammett, Chandler, Burnett, etc.

My early exposure to *Tracy* might also explain why I went into police work and moved to Chicago. *Quien sabe?*

Having said that, I must add that my tastes in mystery are pretty catholic. While I prefer those sub-genres that tend to be regarded as being in the HB house of the Mystery Mansion (police procedurals, PIs, spies), I also enjoy Sayers, Queen, Carr, and many of the other cozy/classic writers. Just not as much.

JIM DOHERTY

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