Re[2]: RARA-AVIS: Another Blockhead Checks In/We Are

james.doherty@gsa.gov
16 Aug 98 09:14:00 -0400 --UNS_gsauns2_2930523183
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On 15 Aug, Bill Denton asked:
"Are there any other books with alcoholic detectives? They seem to be
able to put it back and never get drunk or go through all the blackouts
and vomiting that Scudder experiences."

The first Max Thursday novel by Bob Wade and Bill Miller (writing as
"Wade Miller"), *Guilty Bystander*, finds the hero a step or two above
skid row as house dick at a sleazy hotel. He cleans himself up quickly
when his ex-wife tells him their son has been kidnapped. Drinking is
not presented as a "fun" activity, as in *The Thin Man* or the Bill
Crane novels of Jonathan Latimer, but as addictive and
self-destructive.

Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer "comeback" novel of 1962, *The Girl
Hunters*, has a similar situation. Hammer, a drunken bum since the
apparent death of his beloved Velda seven years earlier, cleans himself
up when he receives news that she may be alive but in danger. As in
*Guilty Bystander*, the detective's drinking is addictive and
self-destructive, and, as in *Guilty Bystander*, the detective is able
to clean himself up virtually overnight when a loved one is in danger.
Oddly, in subsequent books, Hammer is able to enjoy alcohol in a less
abusive, addictive manner, as though he wasn't an alcoholic at all. -
Jim Doherty

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