Jim wrote:
>In keeping with this months's theme, it's worth
noting
>that the two things Tony Hillerman is most noted
for
>are his very effective use of Navajo culture
and
>traditions in his police procedurals, AND
the
>extraordinarily effective use of his rural
>Southwestern settings....
>
> Hillerman, however, was not the first to use
American
>Indian cops in a Southwestern setting. Here are a
few
>of the others.
And don't forget the notorious Johnny Canuck, the "well-known
private investigator." His turf seems to be the Midwest, not
the Southwest, but this turkey's too bad to let pass
unnoticed.
Over the years, Canadians have in turn been greatly bemused
and painfully embarrassed at the American media's distorted
and generally cock-eyed view of our country (Hell,comedian
Rick Mercer's made a whole career out of it), but this one's
so bad it's painful, or at least painfully funny.
The JOHNNY CANUCK series by James Moffat makes those sappy
Nelson Eddy/Jeanette MacDonald/Renfrew of the Northwest
Mounted movies look like hard-hitting CBC documentaries. The
only solace we poor misunderstood Canadians have here is that
that , despite the finger-pointing monicker, this dick is
apparently all-American.
Get this:
"JOHNNY CANUCK's hot blood is one quarter Sioux Indian, going
back to his grandfather, who had fought with Sitting Bull at
the Big Horn. Because he liked the white Canadians, he
changed his name to John Canuck -- the usual name for a
Canadian. His son kept the name, and so did Johnny...a tough
resourceful private eye who gets results where others have
failed... especially with women."
That's just from the preface. And it only gets better (or
worse, depending on your point of view.) In Blue Line Murder,
for example, Johnny is hired by the Lakeview Otters, a
professional hockey team
(granted, the name's no more ridiculous than The Mighty
Ducks), to investigate the murder of their star defenseman,
Tex "Cowboy" Brandt
(Tex is evidently his real name, but "Cowboy" is a nickname).
But wouldn't you know it? Soon Johnny's up to his one quarter
Sioux Indian neck in neo-Fascists from the American Freedom
Front Party.
Johnny appeared in eight paperback originals for Compact in
the mid-sixties, and each one's an alternative classic, 100
per cent American cheese.
Which, of course, begs the question: who was this guy Moffat?
evidently wrote under a slew of pseudonyms (including Hank
Janson), but what planet was he from?
--
Kevin Burton Smith The Thrilling Detective Web Site/CrimeSeen TV/Movie Poll http://www.thrillingdetective.com
For fun only. Please, no wagering. -- # Plain ASCII text only, please. Anything else won't show up. # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 17 Apr 2004 EDT