RARA-AVIS: Daly and Three Gun Terry Mack

pabergin (pabergin@gte.net)
Tue, 23 Mar 1999 23:44:33 -0500 Anita -- Your info on Terry Mack is correct. "Three Gun Terry" appeared in
the May 15, 1923 issue of Black Mask, making Mack the first hard boiled PI
by two weeks. "Knights of the Open Palm," featuring Race Williams appeared
in the June 1, 1923 issue of Black Mask. The reason you hear more about
Williams than Mack is because he was more popular with readers, so Daly kept
writing Race Williams stories. He also had a character named Satan Hall who
I think appeared in Dime Detective.

It's hard to understand why Race Williams was so much more popular than
either of Daly's other two PIs, because Daly really wasn't much of a writer
and his characters are pretty much interchangeable in terms of attitude,
armament and single mindedness.

All three characters were preceded by an unnamed "soldier of fortune" who
fit the Mack/Williams/Hall mold perfectly and probably escaped nabbing the
"first" label by virtue of his choice of a label for his profession. He
appeared in "The False Burton Combs" in a December, 1922 ish of BM.
PB

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